Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00are you the type of person who's convinced you can't be deceived then pay
00:07close attention I wanted to show you this it's a very strange and rare carving of a
00:14skull and the reason it's so strange if you cover it up even for a second then
00:20it completely disappears and that also explains why it's so rare didn't catch
00:26how that happened let's rewind and watch it again and the reason is so strange if
00:31you cover it up even for a second then it completely disappears the skull has
00:36vanished into thin air but how no one thinks that they're going to be the
00:42person who'll be so easily fooled but in fact people can be fooled think you know
00:48how psychologist Richard Wiseman did this we'll find out if you're right in a
00:53minute the fact is our senses deceive us all the time felt duped and betrayed our
01:00brains are riddled with all these little quirks that warp our sense of reality
01:07you'll take part in five mind-bending experiments either I'm really gullible
01:13or you're just really good at your job like to think it's uh oh yeah and we'll
01:18see how the simple mental mistakes revealed by these experiments what have
01:22changed the course of history if you look back on human history you'll see the
01:30impact of these illusions of these mistakes playing out on a broad stage in
01:38this episode find out what a card trick reveals about Hitler's death how an
01:44embarrassing typo led to Bible burnings and what a magical mirror has to do
01:50with cross-dressing sailors they're all keys to deception keys that unlock the
01:56secrets of your bleeped up brain
02:01have you figured out how Richard Wiseman deceived you with his magic skull let's
02:19watch it one last time and the reason is so strange if you cover it up even for a
02:23second then it completely disappears if you still haven't got it perhaps you
02:29simply need another point of view
02:31and rare carving the skull and it's the skull simply isn't on the table at all
02:37in fact it's way behind me so when I make something vanish it wasn't there to
02:42start with this trick illustrates how easy it is to deceive the human brain the
02:47brain collects enormous amounts of information and sometimes it simply
02:51misinterprets what it sees
02:56when you become aware of just how your brain actually works it's amazing
03:01ability to construct your perception of the universe it changes everything our
03:07brain is constantly deceiving us our minds fill in the blanks with what we want to
03:13see and when our minds fill in the blanks things can become a little confusing and in
03:21the case of Adolf Hitler it can even change history
03:33at the end of world war ii comes a shocking announcement on may 1st 1945 it was announced
03:41that hitler was dead they said he died heroically on the front lines in berlin but suspiciously this
03:50astounding announcement didn't come from the allies it came from the nazis if you have an event that is
03:57so important as the death of hitler you're not just gonna take someone's word for it they had to see the body
04:05the next day soviet troops found the fuhrer's body near his bunker
04:09there's famous footage where the russians are taking photos of hitler's body
04:15he had a gunshot wound to the head they had a photo of hitler and they put it right next to his face
04:19said here's the dead body here's the photo what do you think and everyone's like yeah
04:25so hitler's dead mission accomplished right not so fast
04:29magician akaterina debrokatova has a simple card trick that reveals how things aren't always what
04:42they seem see if you can follow the cards now david i'm gonna cut the cards and you simply say stop
04:49whenever you want go ahead stop right here are you sure yes perfect take your card okay show it to the
04:54camera all right i'm gonna hand you back the rest of the deck and just place it in wherever you want
05:00i don't want to look at it i want to make sure it's as fair as possible okay are you done yes perfect
05:05david i feel like taking a breast strip okay so don't mind me you want one that's okay
05:11but that's not the only thing that's in this box now watch closely watch closely
05:19one shake can you hear something in a box i'm going to take the cards from you open it up
05:24and tell me what's inside go ahead
05:29wait was that your card it's my actually find your card in the box yeah but watch to prove it
05:36i have here the rest of the cards now you placed it somewhere in the middle so let me
05:41find it real quick this is the ten of clubs it's missing one piece i want to make sure that
05:46you compare it and tell me if this is a perfect match yeah that's a match that's definitely the card
05:52that was picked awesome david thank you so much for your help i really appreciate it and this was
05:57my take on the classic pick a card trick you're probably wondering what's the point of this trick
06:03and what does it have to do with hitler's death this trick is not only about uncovering the ten of clubs
06:10in this one the trick's on you did you notice anything unusual i have here the rest of the
06:19cards now you placed it somewhere in the middle so let me find it real quick this is the ten of clubs
06:24it's missing one piece i want to make sure that you compare it and tell me if this is a perfect match
06:31match yeah that's a pretty match that's definitely the card that was picked not so much let's watch
06:38the trick from another angle so let me find it real quick this is the ten of clubs it's missing one
06:45piece i want to make sure that you compare it and tell me if this is a perfect match yeah that's a pretty
06:52match that's definitely the card that was picked did you notice there were two men
06:58ekaterina's card trick was a ruse designed to distract and deceive you this is the ten of clubs
07:04while you were looking at the cards you probably didn't even notice that we switched out one person
07:09for another changing what the brain is focused on can make us vulnerable to deception and a masterful
07:16deception is exactly what the nazis were trying to pull off when they announced that hitler was dead
07:22but their deception didn't quite work while the soviets were preparing hitler's body for an autopsy
07:29they noticed something strange basically you know what they found was that uh his he had holes in his
07:35socks why is the leader of nazi germany wearing socks with holes in it this does not make sense if
07:42anyone in germany can afford good socks it's hitler this was a big red flag the soviets compared the
07:49corpses teeth to hitler's dental records and their doubts were confirmed so you got holy socks and
07:56dental records this is the wrong guy but how could soviet troops have misidentified the most infamous and
08:06recognizable face in the world
08:10why does our brain miss changes that are right in front of our eyes
08:13take your card okay speaking of such changes did you notice ekaterina's other two deceptions during
08:22the card trick you were so focused on the cards that you might not have noticed that her handkerchief
08:28and hairstyle also changed these little deceptions fool us because our brains often miss changes happening
08:35right in front of us and this was my take on the classic pick a card trick
08:42there can be big changes in the environment around us and we don't perceive it because our attention is
08:46elsewhere if we're not paying attention to something big changes can happen and we won't even notice it
08:53at all and that's called change blindness because your attention was on ekaterina's cards
09:00you probably didn't notice the three changes in the environment if we can mistake obvious changes
09:08like these three imagine trying to recognize more subtle changes in detail as with the remains of adolf
09:14hitler he had the mustache i mean it was dressed like hitler when you find this why would you doubt it
09:20i mean it's hitler right but it looks like hitler but how many people look like hitler
09:25the phony fuhrer was actually a nazi soldier named gustav weller gustav weller was one of hitler's
09:33body doubles the whole thing was part of a disinformation strategy it was meant to throw
09:37people off to confuse people reportedly hitler used six body doubles during the course of world war ii
09:43to keep the allies from knowing exactly where he was but the soviets aren't the only people who have
09:48fallen victim to little deceptions like this change blindness affects all of us every day
09:56when we're at a restaurant we often fail to notice if the waiter attending to us changes
10:01just because we see something doesn't mean our brains are actively paying attention to it
10:06the brain operates on just 15 watts of power so it can only take in the most basic details
10:13that's why we routinely fail to spot obvious changes and that may be why hitler's body double
10:19convinced the soviet troops at least at first he was shot in the head to make it look like
10:25hitler had died this is the downside to doubling uh dictators keep that in mind in case anybody out
10:32there is thinking about doing this as a career don't as for the real hitler
10:40to the world's relief he killed himself in his bunker and dental records confirmed it
10:45the next time you trust what you see you might want to give it a more critical look
10:54we've seen how a disappearing skull can trick you and how seemingly obvious changes can deceive us
11:00even the simplest illusions can deceive our brains and we can prove it take a look at this desk notice
11:11anything unusual let's move in for a closer look at the objects on this desk
11:17notice anything strange about this rubik's cube how about now
11:24and check out the pair of sneakers go on take a closer look
11:38with deception it's our assumptions that can be manipulated what psychologists and professional
11:47magicians do is they exploit your everyday assumptions and because of that they can
11:53completely fool you
11:55our brains usually run on autopilot assuming everything around us is one seamless reality
12:02and it often overlooks any unexpected changes that have occurred
12:05as we look around the world we don't actually test out all of the ideas in our heads
12:14because we don't double check everything our brain perceives as reality we occasionally miss
12:19important details and in one incident missing the details gave three criminals the chance to do the
12:26impossible
12:27alcatraz's reputation was that it was impossible to escape but in 1962 three inmates hatched a crazy
12:40plan to bust out
12:45night after night they snuck into their cell's air vents and chiseled away at the walls but the guards
12:51had to believe that they were safely asleep in their beds while they were doing this work
12:55their entire plan depended upon their being able to go unnoticed while chipping away at the air shaft
13:04to deceive the surveillance these three inmates got crafty
13:10so what did they do they created these mannequins and the most important part of the mannequin was
13:15the mask these masks were made of a kind of hodgepodge paper mache human hair from the prison
13:22barber shop paint from the arts and crafts room crumpled up newspapers essentially they made masks which
13:31looked enough like human forms that the guards who would think these are just other prisoners asleep in
13:38their bed incredibly their craftiness paid off what's amazing is these masks did not just work for one night
13:47they had to go through an elaborate process of escaping night after night so for a few months actually
13:53they were putting the masks in their bed each night and each night they would go unnoticed
14:00after three painstaking months the chiseled holes were big enough to pass through
14:04and the three men made their daring escape on june 11th 1962.
14:09it's amazing to think that this inescapable and very expensive to run prison was totally challenged
14:15and successfully taken on by essentially an arts and crafts project how could a paper mache mask
14:23fool the nation's most highly trained jailers
14:26we have an experiment that might shed light on this daring escape
14:38in five seconds we'll show you two people name them as quickly as possible ready
14:48is it president bill clinton and vice president al gore
14:51let's see if others recognize these faces just tell me what you see uh clinton and gore
15:04it's al gore and bill clinton bill clinton and al gore okay right hang on a second
15:12are you sure about that take a second look at the person on the left
15:18they're mouths are the same and their noses are the same what
15:25maybe they look alike i don't know and their eyes are the same
15:31do they look alike not really right that's the same exact face what is happening
15:37people have a really hard time grasping this but the guy on the left is not al gore
15:43it's bill clinton's face duplicated it's really easy to miss that
15:49this optical illusion fooled nearly everyone jeff showed it to
15:53you kept sticking with gore right why do you think that was i don't know
15:58our brains don't always examine the finer details of what we see because it requires extra work
16:04the brain is basically lazy so as soon as it's accepted the outline of what it thinks it sees
16:11it just fills in the rest and assumes that all the details match that's why we fill in al gore
16:16when it isn't really al gore's face it's hard to think that you could change someone's face and
16:22still recognize them i felt duped and betrayed i was like going back and forth trying to figure it
16:27out and like bugged out a little bit how does this make you feel about your visual perception this is
16:31going to take months and months of therapy people say that seeing is believing but it shouldn't always
16:36be in the case of the clinton gore illusion and in the escape from alcatraz the brain made quick
16:43almost instantaneous assumptions which made it possible to mask reality with dramatic effect
16:51these guards expected to see sleeping prisoners but no one bothered to look at the details of these
16:57paper mache masks because the guards just assumed that they were people and for the guards the
17:03following morning this assumption made for a rude awakening you can imagine the pandemonium that took
17:10hold the inescapable prison had been broken three convicted criminals were now at large so not for
17:19nothing the prison closed its doors
17:21no one really knows what happened to the escaped convicts if they survived the waters of san francisco bay
17:31or died in them but this much is clear our brain doesn't bother with the details when it believes
17:39that it's already grasped the big picture people believe what they see is an accurate representation of
17:44the world surrounding them but actually we're only seeing small portions of the bigger picture
17:51the reality is that the human brain can't keep up with the billions of pieces of data that our senses
17:57including sight are constantly delivering sometimes our bleeped up brain ignores the details
18:05and this quirk of the brain has paved the way for legendary deceptions throughout history
18:11during world war ii one of the allies most effective weapons was an inflatable tank
18:18that's right the british army made hundreds of these inflatable rubber tanks and strategically staged
18:23them to fool aerial bombers when the nazi bombers saw the dummy tanks from the sky they mistook the fakes
18:30for the real thing and attacked this deception distracted the nazis and allowed the actual british
18:36troops to move unopposed in another direction our brains guide us through the world interpreting
18:43each situation and environment in an attempt to keep us safe and secure but as we've seen
18:50our brains are far from perfect it's hard to think that you could change someone's face and still
18:55recognize them if someone understands the brain's flaws they can manipulate us with simple deceptions
19:01our brains take shortcuts because we can't afford to spend the energy and the time to waste our
19:08attention on every little detail the sweet spot for our brains is to operate at just good enough
19:23frank abagnale jr is one of the most famous con men in the history of america
19:26frank abagnale jr's life inspired steven spielberg's film catch me if you can but how did he earn this
19:35impressive if dubious honor he stole millions using nothing more than simple deception
19:43so to make money frank literally made money he would forge checks frank cast 2.5 million dollars in
19:50forged checks frank had really really great forgeries and he was also great at distracting the bank
19:56tellers he would come in dressed as a pilot simply by dressing up in a pilot's uniform frank transformed
20:01himself into an international jet-setting playboy at the age of 16.
20:10in 1964 frank decided to push his con a little further and wore his pilot's uniform to jfk airport in new york
20:18with confidence and gumption frank conned his way onto a plane
20:27he must have been sweating bullets but by sheer tyranny of will and luck he made it he landed got off in
20:34florida no one suspected anything and this was just the beginning this teenage pilot flew to 26 countries on
20:44250 different free flights it totaled more than a million miles all at pan am's expense
20:53i didn't know anything when i was a 16 year old boy and he was flying around the country doing whatever
20:58he wanted to do that guy why did frank's basic deception work so well to test how susceptible our brains
21:08can be to people in simple disguises we tried an experiment on the streets of new york city
21:14on the day of a national election
21:24united states senator from the state of new york dan hodap has agreed to let a film crew follow him on
21:29his reelection campaign as he solicits last minute votes from the public
21:34so hi justin i'm senator dan hodap uh what i'm asking people today is what is important to you
21:39as a voter i'll say education cutting military spending definitely the economy women's rights
21:44of them are a priori climate change in an effort to capture their votes senator hodap addresses the
21:49concerns of his constituents yeah uh climate change is definitely something that's a top priority i of
21:55course voted against any legislation that came up regarding women's reproductive rights i think it is
21:59very important that we lift people up especially economically in this and to prop up his own
22:04campaign senator hodap is gathering promises from voters that they will actually vote for him
22:10by signing his voter pledge so i'm having folks sign a voter pledge would you be willing to do that for
22:16me thank you would you sign dan hodap's voter pledge it's cold out here let's see what other
22:21people do and i know you'll vote to shake things up in washington you'll cut through the red tape
22:26and you'll help to lead us to a new golden age sure awesome who are you up against uh i'm up against
22:33uh uh mindy galbraith i voted for you wonderful awesome every person dan spoke with signed his
22:42re-election pledge but he's got a more sobering message for his would-be voters dan hodap is not a
22:50senator from new york he's an actor what if i told you that i'm not a senator uh well you're uh you
22:58fooled me what made you perceive that uh that i am a senator you're in character yeah you have a
23:04certain authoritative voice clearly and you you kind of dress the part i met two other politicians
23:09today and you seem to me just to be just as real as them and nice hair okay so you got product in there
23:15yeah a little bit of product uh when you saw me i mean either i'm really gullible or you're just
23:19really good at your job or both i think i'd like to think it's uh both yeah yeah just like dan hodap
23:28frank abagnale fooled people by dressing the part his uniform and his confidence led people to believe
23:36his lies unless we have a reason not to believe a new piece of information we will accept it it actually
23:42takes work to disbelieve something we've just been told we believe first and ask questions later if
23:50we're lucky and that's why we can fall under the spell of a sharp-dressed con man frank was a self-made
23:58expert in human psychology he knew that he didn't have to be a master of disguise to make his cons work
24:06the real trick was in the brain of those he fooled
24:09the brain is generally wired to accept what it sees as truth and it's usually better that way rest
24:17assured for every incorrect assumption the brain makes there are hundreds of correct assumptions
24:24but throughout history con men have manipulated our willingness to take things at face value
24:30this includes the infamous swindler charles ponzi in the early 1900s ponzi deceived investors out of
24:38millions of millions of dollars with such skill that his name is forever linked to a financial swindle
24:43the ponzi scheme or victor lustig who posed as a french government official in 1925 and sold the
24:51eiffel tower to an unwitting scrap metal collector for today's equivalent of nearly one million dollars
24:58reportedly lustig attempted this stunt twice
25:01while we don't all break the law most of us practice the art of the con in everyday life
25:10when we try to impress someone on a date or exaggerate the truth for a job interview everybody
25:17fudges the truth on their resume they boost themselves up frank just boosted himself way up
25:23while pulling a con is an attempt to deceive sometimes our brains fool themselves all on their own
25:28they say to err is human and they're right we've seen why con men can so easily deceive us uh you
25:37fooled me yeah and how the brain fills in the details when we think we've grasped the big picture felt
25:43duped and betrayed still don't believe your brain just makes it up take a look at this optical illusion
25:51what color are this girl's eyes do you perceive them differently the eye on the left looks blue and the
26:00eye on the right looks gray right think again they're both gray the reason you perceive the eye colors
26:09differently is because the brain constructs the colors we see in relationship to each other the red
26:15transparency tricks the brain into making the left eye appear blue when in reality it's gray because of
26:23shortcuts like these our brains can deceive us and makes us susceptible to dramatic mistakes
26:30in fact one shortcut of the brain allowed countless people to see what wasn't there
26:36and led to an infamous bible burning in england
26:45it all started in the 1600s the church of england needed 1 000 new copies of the king james bible
26:54it was up to the royal printers to get these copies out and to make sure the more than 770 000
27:00words were typeset correctly it was a relatively big deal that the king himself requested these thousand
27:08bibles to be made the royal printers would employ many people to review each step of the process to
27:15fact check particularly to make sure that the sacred text came out correct
27:20after feverish work the 1000 copies made their way into churches across england
27:29despite all this focused attention there was one glaring detail that everyone missed
27:36the commandment thou shalt not commit adultery was missing the knot
27:41the seventh commandment now read thou shalt commit adultery
27:51the royal printers had made a blasphemous error
27:55and this unholy text came to be known as the wicked bible
28:03the wicked bible was not wicked by design
28:05this was one of history's biggest typos the church of england actually worried that it ran the risk
28:14of blackening the reputation of christianity
28:20is the human brain still as susceptible to these blunders as the royal printers were 500 years ago
28:26to find out jeff weiss has a message for you
28:38read this sentence out loud go ahead
28:43do you think you know what it says
28:46now let's see what others say
28:49read this sign to me tell me what it says
28:50i love paris in the spring time
29:00i love paris in the springtime
29:02that's a no-brainer right but are you sure
29:08you're not sure
29:08yes i'm sure
29:11yeah okay most people read
29:13i love paris in the spring time problem is that's not what it says
29:18just take it real slow
29:19Okay, I'm gonna give you a hint, okay, it actually doesn't say that
29:28I'm totally cool. Really? Yes. Okay. Do me a favor. I want you to read. No one who read this message got it right even after multiple attempts
29:37Read it along with me. I love Paris in the
29:43The springtime. Oh, wow
29:46My brain did not compute that
29:49Every single person that read Jeff's message missed the second the
29:56Springtime I love Paris in the the springtime. Oh
30:04Okay
30:06You didn't see the mistake
30:09Why is this mistake so easy to miss?
30:12The brain runs on a very small amount of energy, so it has to work quickly and efficiently
30:17We don't have the resources to deal with every single thing in our sensory environment
30:23We don't notice most of what's happening around us and this results in a psychological phenomenon known as inattentional blindness
30:32Inattentional blindness often makes us miss unexpected errors right in front of our eyes
30:36And that's because when we expect to see something the brain tends to block out unexpected possibilities
30:44When participants read Jeff's sign they recognized I love Paris in the springtime as a well-known phrase
30:51They just assumed that's what it said and failed to see the error
30:55Your brain lied to you. Why do you think that happened?
30:59Maybe my brain is dishonest
31:01There's too much information in the world. The brain can't process everything
31:05So the brain just glides right over it. Our brains perceive what they expect to perceive
31:11And in the case of the wicked Bible the seventh commandment seems so fundamental that the printer skimmed right over it
31:18Even though the unexpected mistake was obvious
31:23It's very relevant actually that the typo was in one of the most familiar parts of the Bible because very few people were going to read
31:31The Ten Commandments with the level of scrutiny that one reads something with which one is not familiar
31:37To correct this egregious error the king did what would otherwise have been unthinkable
31:42He ordered that all of these Bibles be recalled and he very publicly burned them
31:50But not all of these Bibles met such a fiery fate
31:55A few of the wicked Bibles survived today and unsurprisingly are highly highly collectible
32:02Rare copies of the wicked Bible can fetch upwards of ninety thousand dollars
32:07And for whatever it's worth the wicked Bible does show us how easy it is to make mind-boggling mistakes
32:18This is one of the reasons that it's so important to read your resume 20 times before you send it out
32:25Here's a trick that copy editors sometimes use look at it backwards reading each word in reverse order
32:32Will prevent your brain from making the assumption about what it thinks ought to come next
32:37We've seen how our brains can fall victim to con men and how sometimes we miss obvious errors right in front of us
32:48But just how gullible are we could our brains mistake a ship full of grizzled sailors for a group of ladies on a leisurely cruise?
32:59We've seen how our brains deceive us by overlooking unexpected but obvious errors
33:07You didn't see the mistake
33:08Why are we prone to missing simple things that are out of place?
33:11Your brain gives you the impression that you really are aware of all of your surroundings
33:16Now if that was the case if you really were processing all of the rich visual information that comes in via the eyes
33:21Well you'd need a brain the size of the planet and that would be ridiculous
33:25And because of that people can miss what's going on right in front of their eyes
33:28Still think you're too smart to overlook the obvious take a look at these two leaning towers of pisa
33:37Do you notice a difference?
33:40The one on the right leans more or does it think again the towers are actually identical
33:48The way our brain interprets what it sees is hopelessly flawed
33:52That is why we see simple illusions and fall for crude disguises
33:57And one historical incident shows just how effective a crude disguise can be
34:10During world war one british sailors fighting against the germans hatched a plot that seemed too ridiculous to actually work
34:17It's weird in the context of this life and death scenario. There's this really wacky story
34:24about cross-dressing
34:27That's right
34:29Cross-dressing
34:31But what role could dressing and drag have possibly played in world war one?
34:36Strangely enough the story begins with the introduction of the german u-boat
34:43The u-boat was a death machine
34:45Their most advanced submarine on the market at the time
34:50At the time the brits had only one effective way to attack them
34:54The u-boats were vulnerable when they surfaced because then you could actually hit them
34:57They weren't hiding underneath the water launching torpedoes from shadows. They were right there in front of you
35:04But the only way to lure a u-boat to the surface was to appear like a harmless merchant vessel and not a warship
35:10And they did this with women
35:14But with only men allowed on combat ships, how do you get women on board?
35:21For the british this was a life or death problem
35:25So the soldiers had a crazy idea
35:28Cross-dressing
35:30This was a crazy plan, but they did it anyway because they're that perfect cocktail of too much crazy and too much balls
35:37On march 15th 1917 the crew on board one ship had its big premiere
35:48This was the moment of truth
35:52This crazy stupid badass brilliant plan this was time to see if it would actually work out
35:58The british went all out
36:01They were carrying babies. They were snuggling up against other men
36:04these men were
36:06were cross-dressing for their lives
36:09And just as the brits hoped the u-boat's guard was down
36:15It surfaced the insane trap had worked and for the british sailors hiding on board this was their chance to attack
36:23They fired everything they had at it
36:25And it worked the u-boat retreated
36:34This little rinky-dink decoy ship full of cross-dressers attacked this u-boat successfully
36:39It was more like a monty python sketch than a battle plan
36:43But how could these simple theatrics actually work can such basic ploys really fool us
36:55Psychologist richard wiseman thinks so and he's going to test that theory on you with his magic mirror
37:02What you're about to see is remarkable the next shot is continuous there's no editing no special effects and perhaps most important of all
37:10no smoke and mirrors
37:12For centuries people have been fascinated by the concept of reflection
37:17In the past they'd pour water into a glass look inside and be amazed to see their own image
37:23Nowadays we use something a bit more sophisticated a mirror
37:28With a mirror reflections are completely reversed
37:31But there's something even more amazing going on
37:34If you take an object and cover it up even though its reflection is always in sight you can make the object completely disappear
37:42It just goes to show the power of mirrors
37:44Didn't catch how that happened haven't figured it out yet
38:12In this alternate angle you can see this actually isn't a mirror it's just a wall with a hole in it
38:21In everyday life we come across mirrors we're used to reflections
38:26We're used to seeing a world inverted inside the mirror the magic mirror works because exploits that notion
38:33If this trick fooled you it's because you assumed it was a mirror when it was really a piece of glass
38:42Most of the time we're really good observing our surroundings working out exactly what's going on
38:48But in order to be that good we are making assumptions and we're not aware of those assumptions
38:54But as a psychologist and as magician if you understand them then you can exploit those assumptions you can start to fool people
39:03Similarly germans on the u-boats assumed that these were women on board and that the ship was harmless
39:10If you're looking up at a ship and you see a bunch of people running around screaming tripping over themselves falling out of the boat
39:15You don't think oh that's a bunch of highly trained naval men you think oh those are civilians
39:21For the german u-boat it would be ludicrous to think hey that's a sailor in drag
39:25The british navy's cross-dressing deception was so successful they created an entire fleet of decoy ships
39:35With the same technique british sailors lured 70 u-boats to the surface
39:42And they destroyed 14 of them
39:44This wasn't masterpiece theater, but it was just good enough to fool the germans
39:52So beware of making assumptions about what you see
39:55Because assumptions make it all too easy for your brain to deceive you
40:00Our brain makes us assume that the details match the big picture as soon as it has a minimum amount of information
40:06It jumps to a conclusion as to what it's seeing and assumes that all the details match
40:14We've seen how deception is a guiding force in the world
40:18From minor mental missteps in our brains to outrageous cons and amazing illusions a little deception has gone a long way to shaping history
40:28So, how did you do?
40:30Were you duped by the disappearing skull or the magic mirror?
40:36Did you see paris in the springtime or fall for senator hodap's dirty tricks?
40:42If so, don't feel too bad it just means you're human
40:47The lesson from all this is don't trust what your brain tells you all the time
40:52As a historian i'm really amazed to see how often illusions have changed history
40:57We know some of the tricks our brains play on us there's a huge amount more to discover
41:05From history's greatest hoaxes to daring feats of war there are countless ways you can find yourself deceived by your bleeped up brain