Person swapping social experiment by Derren Brown

[telephonemurder]

When you're busy giving directions, you're looking into your mind and trying to retrieve that information. You're focusing on not embarrassing yourself and getting it wrong, because you've already claimed to know where the place is. You cut out all external information to focus.

Notice how the person who most confidently knew the location and was about to whisk the man away (also an obvious extrovert) was the only one who did the double take. 1:53

[oogabooga1000000]

I believe this. I work at a food store and whenever somebody asks me to go to the back to check something and when i come back i have no idea who the fuck i was talking to. Once i talked to a thin white woman and when i came out i gave a box of macaroni to a fat black guy

[Pshoeshus]

nooo wayyy thats amazing

[dgs772]

"I coulda sweard i was another guy!" hahhahahah

[vampireweekendsnl]

The asian girl switch does not make sense.

[ThePrettypagan]

lol when i first watched this i didnt even realize the switch.

[xeline012]

may i ask what theory is this relate to..maybe i could come up with this experiment for our social psych class.

[slyspockthefox]

I bet a lot of people notice but don't really care or don't want to ask questions.

[Oncus2]

I am aware of this effect, however not to notice gender change and the skin colour makes me a bit skeptical about this. Maybe if the fail attempts were shown for these deceptions or a mention of the statistics noticed the change/didn't notice the experiment would look more believable.

[giriisindahouse]

@Oncus2 I think they did this test many times and only showed the successful ones.

[Oncus2]

@giriisindahouse Which is why the video looks unconvincing.

[maysoon24]

hahaha how could she not notice the man changed into a woman !

[1hat9uy]

wdf i didn't even noticed what this video for until like 2 minutes later :P

[carlosgefe]

3:16 grnma noticed! :D

[blUdz18]

I think people will notice but wouldn't be bothered to point out the difference. It's the city. What do you expect? People are too busy to give a shit lol

[Sirannon666]

who is the guy appeared at 3.04 is this a kind of subniminal message but it's funny couse he is a smilening man only...

[lg123xyz]

I think people just dont' give a damn enough to bother. They just want to get it over and done with and move on.

[fadzlianie]

change blindness

[ZekeMahogany]

Chris Hanson just did this on Dateline. Same experiment and a few others. I see he must have gotten it from this guy. We rip off their TV shows, might as well rip off their investigative reporting. :\

[Eagmr]

2:00 black guy is so cool!

[TheSunset56]

brilliant

[LazyJones1]

This is an old trick. I saw the exact same thing done in an older BBC show on the human senses - sight, specifically.

The point is that the brain selects which information to process. It does not simply process everything you see. That would be a waste of system ressources.

In this case their mind goes into map-reading mode, ignoring facial-recognition routines almost entirely.

I love the double-take at 3:33 though :p

[Jesusswe91]

wow how cant the notice :D

[k1w1999]

I almost peed myself when the black dude switched in for the white dude.

[redvsblueviewer]

@k1w1999 I almost peed myself when I read this comment. No joke, I lol'd hard.

[linkypoo1234]

does anyone else notice it flashes a guy's face at 3:04 ?

[hemigod2]

well maps are already confusing to most folks, most folks also look for opportunities to be good samaritans as well as "know it alls".

[DeathlyHand]

I LOL'd at "Excuse me, are you familiar with this area?" "NO" LOL.

[007xDante]

humans r stupid LOL at the lady in the end he was black

[animalman1122]

3:04 face hahaha

[agemo2007ed]

don't know what to think of this one... they've probably had some people who did realize but didn't show them.

Still, I've seen other experiments of this type (on Discovery channel) and it's true that if we aren't expecting a swap we generally don't notice; even if the 'swapee' is totally different.

Furthermore, notice how he directs the people's attention to the map and not to himself, the only thing they can really notice is the change in voice.

[tvfan1563]

This can't be real. I mean the beginning I could believe they look a like but when the switch with people that don't look alike people can't be that blind

[NyteMarE757]

@tvfan1563 its observation, if you notice when the picture comes by its of the guy they originally talked to. And when the swap happens their mind doesnt make the connection that there has been a swap because they connect the original guy with the painting.

[ceridianmn]

@tvfan1563 A couple of them did do double takes in the latter part. One guy actually says something, and the woman with her mother (I think) have a short moment after he left realizing something was not quite right.

[oath50]

@tvfan1563 They are paying too much attention to the map

[Hazzobrazzo]

@tvfan1563

I bet the same would happen to you. You wouldn´t recognize the different person. I´m really sure. I don´t think I would recognize it too. ;)

[monstero111]

hahahahaha n1 one

[DaeranAngelfire]

I always said that Derren Brown is the best in the world. Averytime I see a video of him, I know I was right.

[burgi3001]

WTF?