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Witness and crime

Imagine a young man who broke a vase.
Imagine a vase that was broken. 

The same situation could be described by using different structures. In the first sentence we see the phrase that says: "A young man broke a vase". It's the easiest and the most likely to be said description. Subject, verb, object. In the second example, we have a passive voice that was applied.
If you read my posts regularly, you know that I haven't underlined this difference with no purpose.

As I wrote before, we can talk about a situation in different ways. And yes, it has consequences to how we perceive it. 

If an English speaker saw a young man breaking a vase in a museum, he would probably use the first construction.

On the other hand, Spanish or French speaker would be more likely to say that the vase was broken. 

Pay attention that the English speaker is more concentrated on the subject - here: a young man.
The second speaker is focused on the action (because of coosing a passive voice). 

Imagine that these two people were at the same time in two different museums. Accidentally, in both of them a young man broke a vase (ancient, very important element of our heritage). The guy somehow escaped. All visitors were evacuated. Next day, a police patrol started an interrogation of witnesses. The first speaker (the English one) perfectly remembered that the vandal had worn a blue hoodie and white sneakers. He was also sure that he was blonde. The second speaker remembered how the vandal had broken the vase but couldn't remember any details concerning the man. 

The fact that English speakers are more likely to use an active form and many others a passive form makes difference. This time it's not about time or coulours. It's about perceiving situations - what might influence the way they are going to be remembered. Of course, the story that I gave you was extremely simplified (I can bet that if something like this happened to me, I would remember every detail even if I spoke Spanish). But some studies confirmes again that even a small difference between languages may mean a lot.

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