Derren Brown - Person Swap

[@DazeWolf]

Aww, that guy who wanted to walk him there and actually noticed the two were different? He's great!

[@chilihifly007]

Probably cos he was focused on the person, and took a good look rather than just at the map.

[@ManicParroT]

I must say, this video has definitely made me way more skeptical about the value of eye witnesses in a criminal case, particularly when it comes to identifying someone in court 2 weeks later as the criminal.

[@Psychopanda3000]

I’m a psych student and eye witnesses are incredibly unreliable. Learned a ton about it in numerous classes.

[@GlosonTeh]

I think some people noticed the swap but deliberately ignored it because they didn't know how to deal with it.

[@broom6958]

Exactly! they shouldve interviewed them afterwards.

[@midifromhell]

Yeah, how many were thinking "Man, I need to get more sleep, I'm losing it here!"

[@peeperpawsmcgee]

That's a very good point I would love to have seen an interview. But it would have to be done very carefully without revealing to them simply by the asking

[@s.e.s.g8135]

Like the guy at 1:53 "what?!" and then maybe thought his mind tricked him. Ha ha

[@cameronfife8757]

It's possible but this study is repeatable in more professional settings. So I think there's at least some legitimacy to it.

[@labibbidabibbadum]

I've analysed this extensively and I have realised that it is much easier to spot the change when a) you know there is an experiment going on, and b) you are watching it on youtube and you can see what's happening behind the painting.

[@firstimpressions79]

"I could have sworn it was another guy" LOLLLLL SO CLOSE MAN.

[@adrianapollyon5087]

That's what she said last sunday morning. 😋

[@goddosyourself7970]

@@adrianapollyon5087 your mom?

[@robotpanda77]

You'll notice that the old woman did notice, which implies the distraction of the map is a significant part of it.

[@Robert399]

Of course, that's the point! They're not suggesting that if someone transformed in front of your eyes you wouldn't notice. The point is, if you're not really paying attention because you're distracted by something else, fairly major changes can occur without you noticing.

[@daphneepaul3737]

robotpanda77 the black guy noticed too

[@Abocreature]

I wonder how many people noticed but didn't say anything out of fear of offending that person. For instance, when he switched with the girl, if they were to say "I swear you were a guy" had she been there the entire time she might be offended by that.

[@jutde]

People are so worried about offending each other that they let it get in the way. Offense is subjective. You can't control what someone else will be offended by, so don't worry about it.

[@daphneepaul3737]

Abocreature 😂😂

[@daphneepaul3737]

Abocreature I wonder if they switched more than once if they would notice. I wonder d they switched from a regular woman to a pregnant woman if they would notice.

[@PigmenCook]

Some stranger actually did this to me once. I will share my experience. A guy came up to me and said he was asking around for people to take a survey. So he gave me a sheet of paper with a couple of questions. It was wrinkly af like no joke. I thought it was a little strange, but I wanted to get it over with as quick as possible. Then as I looked up I noticed a slight change of appearance, but it didn't occur to me that it was important enough to point out. These guys had the same skin tone and clothes. They revealed to me that it was part of a psychology experiment and I felt like a complete dunce for not pointing it out. In my experience it's not a matter of self awareness, I just didn't really care enough to pay attention to a persons physical features. I was in a hurry and the last thing I cared about was how the person looked. It's just not on your mind. I let them use the video of me for their class, but regret it to this day knowing that I'm made a fool of and its on video.

[@blackngoldcuttlefish3390]

Yeah I think that's the point, right? I heard about this in a psychology class on cognition/attention and it was when we were talking about how you tune out/filter certain things so you can focus on what's important, etc. So it's not that people are stupid, but in order to quickly assimilate the info and act on it (the impt stuff), other things might get left out, like features of a stranger's face, etc.

[@nihilist4184]

Doesn't explain how he becomes she sorry but many people really are stupid.

[@kamilkopacewicz8414]

Thanks for sharing!

[@tomatoleefrog1083]

the whole point of the psychology experiment is proving that it's NOT stupidity and that it's a normal thing everyones brain does when we're focusing on one thing

[@tankmaster1018]

Yeah this prank is brilliant but there is a minor problem with it. I bet a lot of these people do realize that the person switched but didn't know how that would be possible/thought they were crazy so they didnt say anything. I'm just saying I feel like this is a possibility because if this happened to me and they literally switched a person from a man to a woman or from a white guy to a black guy in the blink of an eye like that, I would think I had lost my fucking mind and was going crazy and wouldn't say anything because I would think they would be like "I'm the same guy... need to know where the mental hospital is?" lol

[@plaarwnleelrl]

tankmaster1018 This was my thoughts exactly, however a lot of their faces don't even show alarms are going off.

[@parn2160]

tankmaster1018 True!!

[@daphneepaul3737]

tankmaster1018 the black guy was the only one noticed. Black people are very aware.

[@daphneepaul3737]

tankmaster1018 I think if they switched the person at least 3 tines then they would notice.

[@---rm2gw]

I have to agree with you there. It's kinda like hindsight bias in that way however, because if you didn't know this study existed you would be a lot more likely to fall for it. That being said, I think I pay pretty close attention to people in random encounters; and I would probably end up in the 50% that doesn't fall for it just because I know it exists.

[@lifeofbob2896]

The reaction when the old women told her what just happened was awesome.

[@michaelfern4079]

What did she say? I can’t lip read!

[@TumzFestivalYT]

Love the guy at two minutes. He had the moment of offering to guide Darren, so it was easier for him to spot the change- But he just shrugged it off and continued helping a lost stranger.

[@777Skeptic]

Well, glad my uploaded video helped a psych class. :)

[@SmileAndNod3]

My class and I conducted this same experiment while learning about change blindness and about 70% of the time the change went completely unnoticed (especially when the people switching looked similar and dressed approximately the same). Granted we couldn't get a cross-gender or cross-racial switch to work but for the most part besides that it did. This is legit guys.

[@hduff]

I've done this with callers to my business where my female cousin and I answer the phone at the same time and we take turns answering the questions. No one has ever noticed.

[@orlandofoxxx]

That's so funny :D

[@khadijaatif5760]

Hilarious xD

[@devinkawakami574]

+Sun Shine actually, it's not a brain mechanism that makes you forget what the person looks like do to the portrait per se. It's a brain mechanism called inattentional blindness or change blindness. you can not process so many observations at once, so they are paying attention to the helping the person, the map, or the church because it is the most important at the moment.

[@blackngoldcuttlefish3390]

yep!

[@Robert399]

@Sphere Sword Derren Brown always shows his most successful attempts but he doesn't fake them. This particular effect is easy to demonstrate in the lab. That being said, I'd never take a Derren Brown segment as the average or expected outcome, more a showcase of what it's _possible_ to get away with.

[@Geesaroni]

I like that the one person who noticed the swap was also the guy who gave the best directions and was willing to put the most effort in to help. Shouldn't have second-guessed yourself, man! Whoever you are, you're doing it right.

[@Jankolli]

"...I could have sworn it was an other guy..." *continues providing directions* That made me lol

[@DanielPowell9992]

That last one. Awesome.

[@bobowon5450]

I cant belive they did not notice when he became she XD

[@IvanUED]

He took gender fluidity to a whole new level

[@CloudMac11]

Or when he turned black hahaha

[@ghinanina5608]

jhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and when the white became black hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[@israelrojas5523]

People just want to help. They don't pay atention in faces. "ain't nobody got time for dat"

[@daphneepaul3737]

Israel Rojas 😂 lol

[@xxSerpenttinexx]

I didn't notice the swapping in the beginning until he said what was going on

[@throsturth]

The ends of each of the scenes were brilliant!!

[@IHartJAsPeRHaLe]

This is known as perceptual blindness. It comes in many forms, and they all center around distractions in attention. As long as you can heavily grab someone's attention, then you can fool them with just about anything that has to deal with their perception of things. This is why in the examples with more than one person, the second person that wasn't entangled in trying to explain the directions noticed the change.

[@gersoncortes2769]

I love the commenters who think their brains are above such trickeries. We all have human brains

[@dioc8699]

That explains how dumb everyone here is... THE BRAIN.

[@JordanBeagle]

1:53 "I could sworn it was another guy" He caught on!

[@subn0rma1]

I saw a video just like this for my psych class at uni, you're right, people notice something is off but just completely ignore it and assume that they are wrong.

[@1Rekuiem]

damn the music makes me want to watch always sunnny

[@gamingwildlife]

This is great!

[@MrFerolakatos]

ROFL, this is fcking great, at first i didnt notice even watching it on the video :D

[@doeyjetiege2274]

The music makes this feel like an Always Sunny scheme

[@sarahconnor9747]

I'm wondering, were there any people who DID notice, and did they edit it out. Serious, I'm sure some one noticed. peace

[@pepsi8967]

they showed a guy who did notice at 1:55

[@spencecity99]

Did you not notice the guy who noticed 1:55

[@powerwins]

Connie Reed He noticed,but his brain tells him he's wrong and he was talking to the same guy the whole time.

[@SirJorb]

I think part of it is also the face that his face is on the poster as seen by the person giving directions. When it reveals the new person, their brain rationalizes that the face that was just in their mind was from the poster, not the person they were just talking to, since obviously that's not what the looked like!

[@tigerseyeproductions]

Reminds me of 1984 (the novel). An obvious change is made, but it doesn't make sense, so your brain just subconsciously accepts it. Especially with the change from male to female. A part of you must have known it happened, but it's 'impossible' so you have no choice but to accept it. Amazing.

[@gorgeousaur]

Some of this is just too amazing.

[@What-go8ng]

What face pops up just after 3:00 ?

[@jeanie.00]

LOL how creepy!!

[@wangyifei02]

A similar "experiment" happened to me near the Louvre. And after staring at the map and trying to help with directions, I noticed some swapping happened - not the group of youngsters asking for help but my wallet.

[@Checkm8isFEELINGood]

1:22 At this second the bald man looks like Johnny Sins, a famous porn actor

[@jdiaz92324]

I thought the same thing 😂

[@misstheatregeek92]

This is fantastic! Saw it in my Psych. class.

[@SenseiDenax]

1:53 Mindfucked

[@daphneepaul3737]

SenseiDenax black people notice

[@alesegura7971]

Faltan vídeos de magias tan reales como lo es éste. Buen fenómeno psicológico llevado a la práctica.

[@hermanessences]

Hahahaha, this is seriously the funniest thing I have ever seen. It's brilliant! :D

[@rrsantiagoe]

This has a lot to do with top-down vs bottom-up processing. Look it up.

[@arielletolome5036]

The ending is the BEST!!

[@goodmaro]

As with "Candid Camera", etc., you never know if they're just playing along with the gag.

[@AnarchistMetalhead]

there have been tests about that as well, in which people got a statement, those that agreed to it were asked to provide arguments for it, only minutes later the wording got slightly changed for the statement to mean the opposite, now people argued for the opposite without noticing a change

[@americanswan]

There are comments about 3:00. The guy as he walks away is looking at the camera. Check it out. Also there is a quick frame of some "clown" people say, I'd have to download the video and check it out in a video editor.

[@ZedsDeadXO]

That is a brain mechanism in which the person simply forgets what he was thinking earlier due to the portrait passing by(it's similar to when you walk into a room or open a refrigerator and forget what you went there for), which explains how people were so easily fooled.

[@KatalanMoon]

You asked them to pay attention to the painting. This affect can be described by both inattentional blindness (paying attention to something else and not noticing another change) and change blindness (being unaware of changes within a scene). They have done studies on both of these effects.

[@osmoticmonk]

“The Gang Messes With Our Heads”

[@grrfacegrl]

Im absolutely fascinated by this

[@slop123456789]

the music in the background is also in 'its always sunny in philadelphia'

[@Asthaar8]

This is brilliant!

[@abaseraserhead]

it's incredible when he switche for the asian-looking woman, how do you not notice that? mind-blowing. i loved it, too, when the white-haired lady was explaining to the younger lady that she just got tricked and the younger whirls around like "wha?!"

[@GurPrm]

@jiggajesse- He is asking Americans, this was filmed in New York City near the Brooklyn Bridge. Some of us are nice.

[@mistereveready]

this is epic, this is one reason why i don't give much(if any) weight to personal experiences as evidence to something.

[@acountddd]

@hotice619 I think it had mostly to do with what was actually on the giant portrait of Derren. They probably thought in some subconscious way "Oh I must be confused with the portrait, this guy in front of me must be the person I was talking to." but I am just guessing.

[@NATESKATEandDESTROY]

this is incredible

[@jonny88x]

It's just an attention trick. When we are focusing our attention on certain parts of the scene (the map) we have no memory for other parts of the scene (the person).

[@fureetutawk3604]

Looking at the positive here. what this proves is that people are inherently willing to be helpful without passing judgment or even caring about the race, gender or color or the person they are helping.

[@Kelistik15]

The psychological vocabulary term is "selective attention." Because they are focused on the map and giving directions, they do not notice the change person.

[@nanayang3736]

The porter insisting to cut them through made me laugh so hard even with knowing that it's an experiment

[@Barl3000]

That is eerie, imgine how many things we miss every day

[@againstthewind]

@fisksallad In the actual experiment that this video is based on, they ask people after the encounter if they had noticed anything strange. I forgot what the actual numbers are, but even after being asked directly "Did you notice that I am not the same person who asked for directions?" a majority of the people answered "No."

[@ElyonsChild94]

I watched the whole thing. It's very entertaining ^_^

[@kevseq123]

yes its actually in the description y. its actually 2 shows so thats the swapping point.

[@Dimichailidis]

@Crazy1ndn I guess because (like the descripsion says) "First half is from "Mind Control," S01E02. Second half is from "Trick of the Mind," S03E04."

[@vaooav2299]

It is so marvellous

[@angelicMisha]

Wow, seriously? That's really quite incredible and quite interesting to watch!

[@mycommentpwnz]

This study was originally done in 1998 and they used a door. The painting is just to elaborate the fact that the "Helpers" aren't noticing the switch. Just another bit of knowledge I've gained from VSAUCE! /cheer!

[@therealCamoron]

@dafreakingdude It's because she wasn't focusing intently on the map, the girl with her was.

[@xEternalx]

@SonyCamry I think it has more to do with being people orientated. The other person who noticed was the girl who's helping Darren locate the circus. If you compare her and the Black guy, they both seem to be genuinely helpful individual. They both cheerful and looks very happy to help. Whereas the others seem to be in a rush or unemotional. what do u think?

[@ManicParroT]

I suspect you're partially right there. The social transaction has started, so they're relating to the person in a certain way, at a certain level. I do think that you'd still get a lower successful swap rate going from, say, white male to black female than if it was white male to white male.

[@Reliken]

hey that music is from it's always sunny in philidelphia...

[@Phobotech]

That's crazy...Sadly, I doubt this is fake. I love you, Cracked.

[@axisofinfinity]

Agreed, it is shown when the old lady points out to the subject that it was another person. She was looking at the guy not the map.

[@zappafan136]

@Slaaptekort That's actually not a bad theory. I love derren brown vids on youtube because it seems like everyone draws different conclusions as to what methods he uses.

[@Hazchem]

Pretty sure it's just the Video changing episodes, from the movie info: "First half is from "Mind Control," S01E02. Second half is from "Trick of the Mind," S03E04"

[@ShibuThomasTheoriginal]

@jiggajesse check the accents. the first couple of guys are Americans. the second one talks about wall street.

[@funincluded]

I like how that one guy noticed. He concentrated on the person, not the map when he asked "You want me to take you over there" or whatever

[@bes25]

This is one of those things where I think "oh, I'd see right through that. That would never fool me" yet would be fooled by if it actually happened to me...even after seeing this video. The mind works in some strange yet rational ways.

[@TylerBrainerd]

@MagicDrumma216 it has nothing to do with dumb, it's that there is no reason to take particular notice of what the person looks like.

[@bu3asalli]

one of the guys noticed but only because he was paying more attention and he didn't move his sight away!!! amazing!!!

[@AlkisGD]

@itpduder Heh, I grew up in two small rural towns and now I live in a city of ~85k people. I look at people in the face because I live downtown and it's very likely that I'll people I know. The city isn't that big either, you can walk from end to end. What you're saying makes sense, though we're saying different things: I still can't see all the faces. I often wonder if a friend might have thought I rudely ignored them one day while brushing past them on the street :p

[@KevinLounsberry]

I realize the majority of people are fooled by it, but 1:56 makes it clear that not EVERYbody is. I am an artist and I have a tendency to look at my surroundings and pay attention to things like facial features and voice and hair so that I can use them on a later date in artwork. If the replacing person were very similar, I think even then I would notice, but just shrug it off after a few seconds as a mistake. (don't enough space to explain, but someone's voice can be helpful in artwork too)

[@Kevin88660]

It is not about change in physical appearance. It will be successful as long as the rapport isn't broken.

[@TheKlaustro]

Gosh haha i gotta learn this, first after seeing the picture, i thought it was always a 50% morph between derron brown and the swapping person, but after the others kicked in idk, but i think it is something with derrons voise, maybe a bit of misdirection, and absolutly something about the picture, maybe neutralisise the person so it could " transfom" into someone else less noticeble

[@xxSEBBExx]

CRACKED ;) amazing !

[@YasinKoch]

amazing!

[@blackrose24]

@SuicidalNun Psychology major doing a research paper call Change Blindness Using the Flicker Paradigm actually. But whatever, think what you want.

[@richardgladden240]

Here is a hint how it is done.... While thinking of the directions, a drastic interruption confuses the mind, but that interruption causes the helper to focus on the photo passing by which makes the mind reset or cleans the slate. Only those that does not focus on the photo passing by can notice the swap. Now rewatch and look at the photo passing by and you will see what I am talking about. The photo is different!

[@Efreeti]

Probably a cutaway to an interview, which the poster here edited away, but a frame or two was left in.

[@CharmedYug]

actually, this also refers to inattentional blindness. Look up the experiment done by Simons and Levin in 1998

[@jos7886]

I think many people do notice but aren't sure if they are being decieved or have decieved themselves. Guy at 1:38 wasn't scared to ask though. Most people assuming they're not on a TV show don't want to feel stupid by asking questions like "didn't somebody else ask me for directions?".

[@AlkisGD]

@itpduder Walking ain't bad! I live in a small city and walk almost to and from anywhere, with the single exception of the uni because it's up on a hill and walking to it every morning is a pain. Though I still walk to it from occasionally when time's not an issue. P.S.: Weren't we talking about people's faces? :p I often think my (relatively low) astigmatism makes it even harder for me to recognize people who aren't close, so I have to look carefully anyway :P

[@YamahaCruiser0]

I think the reason why people think their still talking to the same person is that he or she just continue with the conversation and letting them focus on the map instead on who their talking to. The painting could have been blank, it's just there for the distraction. When the swap has been completed the person is trying to regain their focus on the conversation.

[@Xx0Mystic0xX]

Everyone in my lecture hall burst out laughing at the last one last year. Lol jokes

[@Dragonlover553]

In my psych 101 class one student mentioned a case where they replaced the man with a woman. The guy giving directions didn't even realize until she was walking away.

[@MyassWins]

At the same time, its so absurd that someone would randomly change, that I might do just what the one guy that noticed did. He mentioned it, but why would someone else just pop up with a map and be asking exactly where the same building is like that?

[@Dutchbest]

This is amazing. Oh wow.

[@blackXSpr]

rapid induction plus power of suggestion hypnosis is real and you can hypnotize people very quickly but they must be willing and able to respond to the hypnosis.