Page 113 - Malcolm Gladwell - Talking to Strangers

In one version of the experiment, Morgan says, after stressful questioning, 80 percent of the sample
would draw the figure piecemeal, “like a prepubescent kid, which means your prefrontal cortex has
just shut down for the while.”
For anyone in the interrogation business, Morgan’s work was deeply troubling. The point of the
interrogation was to get the subject to talk—to crack open the subject’s memory and access
whatever was inside. But what if the process of securing compliance proved so stressful to the
interviewee that it affected what he or she could actually remember? Morgan was watching adults
turn into children.
“I had just been in the compound collecting spit from all the different students,” Morgan says,
remembering one incident from early at his time at SERE:

And I went back out because they had now opened the gates, the family [members] are there.
They all say hello. And I walked up to a couple of students: “So, it’s nice to see you when no
longer under those conditions.”

And I remember some of them went, “When did you get here?” And I was like, “What do you
mean, when did I get here? I actually collected spit from you twenty minutes ago. I had you fill
out—”
“I don’t remember that.”
And I said, “And I saw you the other night when you were being interrogated.”
And they’re like, “No, got nothing.”
I looked at one of the instructors and I said, “That’s crazy.” And he said, “Happens all the
time.” He goes, “They don’t even remember me, and I’m the guy who was yelling at them thirty
minutes ago.”
Morgan was so astonished that he decided to run a quick field test. He put together the equivalent
of a police lineup, filling it with instructors, officers, and a few stray outsiders.
“The physician for the unit had come back. He’d been on vacation.…I said, ‘You’re going in the
lineup today.’ We put him in.”
Then Morgan gave his instructions to the soldiers: “We’re really interested in the person who ran
the camp and ordered all your punishments. If they’re there, please indicate who they are. If they’re
not, just say, ‘Not here.’” He wanted them to identify the commandant—the man in charge.
“Out of the fifty-two students, twenty of them picked this doctor.…And he goes, ‘But I wasn’t
here! I was in Hawaii!’” 2
If one of the soldiers had gotten it wrong, it would have been understandable. People make
mistakes. So would two misidentifications, or even three. But twenty got it wrong. In any court of
law, the hapless physician would end up behind bars.
After 9/11, Morgan went to work for the CIA. There he tried to impress upon his colleagues the
significance of his findings. The agency had spies and confidential sources around the world. They