On the reliability of witness recollections...

[Pat Speer]

From Chapter 18d: 

 

Since those rejecting the possibility the Parkland doctors could be mistaken about the location of Kennedy's head wound cite Professor Elizabeth Loftus in support of their position, a short discussion of Professor Loftus' research is in order.

First of all, here's their argument... On Table 3.1 of Loftus' 1979 book Eyewitness Testimony she presents a chart demonstrating memory accuracy in relation to saliency or importance. This shows that when it came to salient details, (what was determined after the event to be most frequently discussed or noticed) the recollections of the eyewitnesses to the event used as a test were 98% accurate, while the recollections of the details that were less widely noticed were only 61% accurate.

Well, this suggests (at least to those citing this chart, e.g. Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Gary Aguilar) that it would be extremely unlikely for so many witnesses to be mistaken as to the location of Kennedy's head wound.

But there are a number of problems with this conclusion. To begin with, this chart was based upon a 1971 study by Marshall et al (that was published in the Harvard Review) in which the "witnesses" were shown a short film, and then interviewed immediately thereafter. The interviewers had previously shown the film to another group of witnesses, who had listed what they had noticed in the film. And this list helped the interviewers determine what was "salient." The interviewers then asked the new group of witnesses a series of multiple choice questions, and from this they determined that the new group of witnesses was 98% accurate on the salient points.

The problem, of course, is that this study bears no resemblance to what happened with the Parkland witnesses.

1. The Parkland witnesses were not bystanders observing everything as closely as possible in anticipation they would be tested on it, but participants in a fast-moving and traumatic event.

2. The Parkland witnesses' first recollections as to the wound location were not given immediately after leaving Trauma Room One, but an hour or more afterwards, on up to 30 years or more afterwards.

3. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise wound location was a "salient" detail. The salient details in the study cited by Loftus, after all, were determined by pre-screening the film and noting what details were most often listed. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise location of the head wound would have been one of the details most listed by those watching a film of the President in Trauma Room One.

Now that might sound a bit silly. One should consider, however, that no one at Parkland Hospital had a clue where the shots came from, or where the limousine was on Elm Street when the shots were fired. As a result, there is no reason to believe the exact location of the President’s head wound was of interest to them, and should be considered a salient detail. So...what was a salient detail, then, if not the exact wound location? Well, one such detail was whether or not the wound was a survivable wound. The witnesses, after all, were 100% consistent on that point. They all said "no."

And that's not the only point on which they were consistent. While recollections of the exact location of the President’s head wound varied from being on the top of his head to being at the very back of his head, all the witnesses remembered clearly and correctly that the wound was not on his face. It seems likely then that the main focus of everyone’s attention was the President’s face.

Now, this realization--that the witnesses were focused on Kennedy's face--helps support what we've already discussed regarding rotation and perception. The witnesses were mentally rotating Kennedy's face while looking at his wounds and this led to some confusion as to the exact location of the head wound beyond that it was in his hair in back of his face.

Or not. We will almost certainly never know exactly why so many doctors got it wrong. But it's enough to know that mistakes of this nature are actually quite common, and of no surprise whatsoever to the cognitive psychologists tasked with studying such mistakes.

Don't believe me? Well, then, let's go back to Loftus. Yep, when I finally got around to reading Elizabeth Loftus' book Eyewitness Testimony for myself--as opposed to reading summaries of her work by those claiming it supported the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses--I realized just how WRONG it was for anyone to claim her work supports the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses.

Sure, there's that chart citing a 1971 study in which witness recollections were 98% accurate on salient points when taken immediately following the viewing of a film, but what about the rest of the book? What about Loftus' own studies?

Well, on page 54 she cites the negative effect of time on memory. She then proceeds to cite a number of studies in which certain kinds of behavior add to this decay. On page 55, she cites a 1927 incident in which a newspaper reporter misreported the substance of a college lecture, where the teacher then tested his students on the lecture, and found that those who'd read the incorrect article made many more mistakes than those who'd relied solely upon their attendance at the lecture. The teacher had discovered, to his dismay, that reading something that isn't true about something someone had witnessed for oneself could negatively impact one's memory of that event.

And that's just the beginning. Loftus then proceeds to cite a 1975 study of her own in which subjects were shown a film of a car making a right turn without coming to a stop at a stop sign, and causing an accident. Half the subjects were then asked the approximate speed of the car when it ran the stop sign, with the other half being asked the approximate speed of the car when it made its right turn. All the students were then asked if they'd seen the stop sign. 53% of those reminded of the stop sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign, while only 35% of those not reminded of the sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign. Well, this shows how the questioning of a witness can inadvertently "enhance" their memory.

And not just for the better. For another 1975 study she showed forty subjects a short videotape of a student demonstration. At the end of the tape, she handed out some questionnaires in which she asked half the students the sex of the leader of "the four demonstrators", and the other half the sex of the leader of "the twelve demonstrators." A week later the subjects returned to answer additional questions. At this time, they were asked the number of demonstrators they'd observed. The correct answer was eight. Even so, those who'd been asked the "four" question recalled seeing an average of 6.4 demonstrators (an apparent compromise between the four they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed), and those who'd been asked the "twelve" question recalled seeing an average of 8.9 (an apparent compromise between the twelve they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed).

This tendency to compromise was further studied in 1977. In this study, the subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. They were then asked a series of questions about the slides. One of the questions dealt with the color of a car passing the accident. This car was actually green. Half the subjects were asked about the blue car driving past the accident, with the other half being asked the same question, but without being told the car was blue. The subjects then engaged in another activity. When they returned to the study, twenty minutes later, the subjects were shown a color wheel containing thirty color strips and asked to match these to ten objects they'd observed on the slides. Those who'd been asked about a blue car "tended to pick a blue or bluish-green as the color that they remembered for the car that passed the accident. Those not given any color information tended to choose a color near the true green. Thus, the introduction of the false color information significantly affected the ability of subjects to correctly identify a color that they had seen before."

On page 58 she cites another of her studies in which subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. (I think we can presume these were the same slides used in her earlier study...) Half were then asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a stop sign, with the other half being asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a yield sign. (There were, in fact, two different sets of slides, one showing it stop at a stop sign, and one showing it stop at a yield sign.) In any event, when shown slides a bit later in which the car was by one of the signs and asked if they'd seen this slide before, 75% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about the sign which they'd been shown answered affirmatively. Now, that's no surprise. But, here's the shocker: 59% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about a sign they had not been shown also answered affirmatively when shown a slide of that sign. This, to be clear, was a sign they had not been shown, but they claimed to recognize anyway, twenty minutes after being asked a question in which the nature of the sign--stop or yield--was misrepresented. Now, the control question for this study suggests that 25% of those shown an image of a sign they'd been shown will fail to recognize it. And this in turn supports that 25% of those claiming to have seen a sign they'd not been shown would have claimed they'd seen it even if they'd never been asked a misleading question. But this still suggests that 34% of the subjects were led to recall seeing something they'd never seen... from being asked a question that suggested they'd seen it.

Loftus then cites a similar study in which her students served as subjects. She showed them a film of a car racing down a country road. Some of them were then asked about a barn on the side of the road. A week later, all of the students were asked if they recalled seeing a barn in the film. 17% of those asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn, while only 3% of those not asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn. No barn was shown in the film. It follows, then, that 14% of the students were fooled into thinking they saw a barn just by being asked about it.

She then cites another less scientific study involving her students. In this one, her students staged a fake theft, in which a woman left her bag unattended in a crowded place and a man pretended to steal something out of her bag. The woman then returned to her bag and cried out that a tape recorder had been stolen. She and a friend then took the phone numbers of a number of witnesses. A student posing as an insurance agent called a week later. Well, more than half the witnesses claimed they saw the supposedly stolen (but actually non-existent) tape recorder, with some of them describing it in great detail.

She then cites another study involving saliency, to which those citing her book should have referred. This one is from 1977, by Dritsas and Hamilton. For this study subjects were shown films of industrial accidents, and then asked a series of questions--some deliberately misleading--about the films. Well, to no one's surprise, they found that salient or central items or events were recalled more accurately--and were less likely to be altered by misleading information--than peripheral items. But look at these numbers. The subjects were but 47% accurate on peripheral items. Even worse, their recollections of peripheral items could be altered via misleading information 69% of the time. Now let's see how they fared on central items. The recollections of the subjects on central items were but 81% accurate. (That's a far cry from the 98% suggested by the study depicted in Loftus' Figure 3.1). More telling, though, is this. 47% of those correctly recalling a central item or event recalled it incorrectly after receiving misleading information.

This all leads up to the largest study cited by Loftus, this one involving 600 subjects. For this study, she once again showed the subjects a series of slides involving a stop sign or yield sign, and once again asked some of the subjects a subsequent question in which they were given misleading information about the sign they'd been shown. But for this one, she asked some of the subjects what they saw immediately after viewing the slides, and asked some of them the same question one day, two days, or even a week later.

The results were staggering. While those questioned immediately after viewing the slides--and not asked any misleading questions regarding the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown 80% of the time, those questioned a week later--and asked a misleading question about the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown but 20% of the time.

Our memories are fragile. They are subject to change within moments of their creation, based upon subsequently received information. They also erode with time, and grow more subject to change as time goes by. The reception of misleading information can not only compromise our memories, where we remember things partly as they were and partly as we've been told they were, but lead us to recall seeing things we never saw, and remember things that never happened.

But who am I to blather on? Here is Loftus' own summary of her findings, as published in her memoir, Witness for the Defense (1991): "As new bits and pieces of information are added into long-term memory, the old memories are removed, replaced, crumpled up, or shoved into corners. Memories don't just fade...they also grow. What fades is the initial perception, the actual experience of the events. But every time we recall an event, we must reconstruct the memory, and with each recollection the memory may be changed--colored by succeeding events, other people's recollections or suggestions...Truth and reality, when seen through the filter of our memories, are not objective facts but subjective, interpretive realities."

As a result, I'm forced to reject the primacy of the Parkland witnesses. Their statements have been erratic from the get-go, and have only grown more erratic over time. Those holding them up as a "smoking gun" in the JFK case both misrepresent the location of the wound described by the bulk of these witnesses, and the consistency of these witnesses as a whole. There's just no "there" there.

Of course, this is a double-edged sword. The memories of those deferring to the accuracy of the autopsy photos twenty-five years after the shooting are not necessarily more credible than the memories of those claiming they saw cerebellum, and that's it. While the one group is seemingly more malleable, the other is seemingly less reasonable. It's impossible to say who is right based upon words and words alone.

So that's a choice I choose not to make.

The autopsy photos, x-rays, and autopsy report are consistent with the recollections of the Dealey Plaza witnesses. And for me that is enough...

[Gerry Down]

The witnesses were right. JFK had a big hole in the back of his head right where the witnesses pointed to.

[Pat Speer]

7 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

The witnesses were right. JFK had a big hole in the back of his head right where the witnesses pointed to.

Which witnesses? They didn't all point to the same location. 

[Gerry Down]

Just now, Pat Speer said:

Which witnesses? They didn't all point to the same location. 

I'm referring to that collection of images of people pointing to the back of their heads. It appears in Grodens book The Killing of a President. They can't all be wrong.

[David Von Pein]

12 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I'm referring to that collection of images of people pointing to the back of their heads. It appears in Groden's book The Killing of a President. They can't all be wrong.

Yes, they can all be wrong. And they are....as these autopsy materials pictured below prove for all time. Because, as we all can see, there is positively no huge hole anywhere in the BACK of JFK's head. And every bit of BONE at the right-rear of his head is STILL THERE. None of the REAR head bone is blown out at all....

 

Interestingly, it would seem as though the very few Dealey Plaza witnesses who were in a position to view the head wound close-up at the time of the shooting are some of the very few witnesses who got the location of the wound correct when asked later. Those witnesses being Bill Newman, Abe Zapruder, and Gayle Newman:

 

 

 

Edited January 11 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

15 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I'm referring to that collection of images of people pointing to the back of their heads. It appears in Grodens book The Killing of a President. They can't all be wrong.

I've gone through those one by one numerous times on this website. A number of them were people who didn't actually see the wound and were only repeating what they'd been told. A few others were pointing out the rear-most part of the large defect after the scalp was reflected and skull fell to the table, and were misrepresented by Groden as witnesses to a wound in that location at the beginning of the autopsy. While the bulk of the rest did indeed point towards the back of the head, they mostly pointed to a location entirely above the level of the ear on the back of the head, when the CTs selling books on this stuff insist the wound they're pointing out was at the level of the ear, and was in accordance with the McClelland drawing, and that the Harper fragment was occipital bone. It's a hoax. That I've been pointing out for more than a decade. 

And this really upsets some people. 

Edited January 11 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

 

Thread title:

On the reliability of witness recollections...

Translation:

How I rationalize away witness testimony that doesn't fit my preconceived notions...

 

Edited January 11 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

12 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Thread title:

On the reliability of witness recollections...

Translation:

How I rationalize away witness testimony that doesn't fit my preconceived notions...

 

I spent years studying the medical evidence, and compiling a data base of witness recollections, before concluding that the back of the head witnesses were not proof the body was altered, or that the autopsy photos were fake. 

Those arguing against me, on the other hand, inevitably cut and paste the same statements I studied 20 years ago, and the same arguments I debunked a decade ago.

There was no preconceived notion. I don't know who killed Kennedy, and I think anyone claiming they do know is likely full of hooey. What I do know is that the official medical evidence was spun to suggest a single shooter, and the eyewitness evidence has been spun by CTs to sell any number of theories. 

Stop selling or reading what others are selling. Read textbooks. Learn. And you will see that most CT books are every bit as full of crud as the Warren Report. 

[W. Niederhut]

13 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Thread title:

On the reliability of witness recollections...

Translation:

How I rationalize away witness testimony that doesn't fit my preconceived notions...

 

LOL

[Michael Griffith]

15 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

From Chapter 18d: 

 

Since those rejecting the possibility the Parkland doctors could be mistaken about the location of Kennedy's head wound cite Professor Elizabeth Loftus in support of their position, a short discussion of Professor Loftus' research is in order.

First of all, here's their argument... On Table 3.1 of Loftus' 1979 book Eyewitness Testimony she presents a chart demonstrating memory accuracy in relation to saliency or importance. This shows that when it came to salient details, (what was determined after the event to be most frequently discussed or noticed) the recollections of the eyewitnesses to the event used as a test were 98% accurate, while the recollections of the details that were less widely noticed were only 61% accurate.

Well, this suggests (at least to those citing this chart, e.g. Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Gary Aguilar) that it would be extremely unlikely for so many witnesses to be mistaken as to the location of Kennedy's head wound.

But there are a number of problems with this conclusion. To begin with, this chart was based upon a 1971 study by Marshall et al (that was published in the Harvard Review) in which the "witnesses" were shown a short film, and then interviewed immediately thereafter. The interviewers had previously shown the film to another group of witnesses, who had listed what they had noticed in the film. And this list helped the interviewers determine what was "salient." The interviewers then asked the new group of witnesses a series of multiple choice questions, and from this they determined that the new group of witnesses was 98% accurate on the salient points.

The problem, of course, is that this study bears no resemblance to what happened with the Parkland witnesses.

1. The Parkland witnesses were not bystanders observing everything as closely as possible in anticipation they would be tested on it, but participants in a fast-moving and traumatic event.

2. The Parkland witnesses' first recollections as to the wound location were not given immediately after leaving Trauma Room One, but an hour or more afterwards, on up to 30 years or more afterwards.

3. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise wound location was a "salient" detail. The salient details in the study cited by Loftus, after all, were determined by pre-screening the film and noting what details were most often listed. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise location of the head wound would have been one of the details most listed by those watching a film of the President in Trauma Room One.

Now that might sound a bit silly. One should consider, however, that no one at Parkland Hospital had a clue where the shots came from, or where the limousine was on Elm Street when the shots were fired. As a result, there is no reason to believe the exact location of the President’s head wound was of interest to them, and should be considered a salient detail. So...what was a salient detail, then, if not the exact wound location? Well, one such detail was whether or not the wound was a survivable wound. The witnesses, after all, were 100% consistent on that point. They all said "no."

And that's not the only point on which they were consistent. While recollections of the exact location of the President’s head wound varied from being on the top of his head to being at the very back of his head, all the witnesses remembered clearly and correctly that the wound was not on his face. It seems likely then that the main focus of everyone’s attention was the President’s face.

Now, this realization--that the witnesses were focused on Kennedy's face--helps support what we've already discussed regarding rotation and perception. The witnesses were mentally rotating Kennedy's face while looking at his wounds and this led to some confusion as to the exact location of the head wound beyond that it was in his hair in back of his face.

Or not. We will almost certainly never know exactly why so many doctors got it wrong. But it's enough to know that mistakes of this nature are actually quite common, and of no surprise whatsoever to the cognitive psychologists tasked with studying such mistakes.

Don't believe me? Well, then, let's go back to Loftus. Yep, when I finally got around to reading Elizabeth Loftus' book Eyewitness Testimony for myself--as opposed to reading summaries of her work by those claiming it supported the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses--I realized just how WRONG it was for anyone to claim her work supports the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses.

Sure, there's that chart citing a 1971 study in which witness recollections were 98% accurate on salient points when taken immediately following the viewing of a film, but what about the rest of the book? What about Loftus' own studies?

Well, on page 54 she cites the negative effect of time on memory. She then proceeds to cite a number of studies in which certain kinds of behavior add to this decay. On page 55, she cites a 1927 incident in which a newspaper reporter misreported the substance of a college lecture, where the teacher then tested his students on the lecture, and found that those who'd read the incorrect article made many more mistakes than those who'd relied solely upon their attendance at the lecture. The teacher had discovered, to his dismay, that reading something that isn't true about something someone had witnessed for oneself could negatively impact one's memory of that event.

And that's just the beginning. Loftus then proceeds to cite a 1975 study of her own in which subjects were shown a film of a car making a right turn without coming to a stop at a stop sign, and causing an accident. Half the subjects were then asked the approximate speed of the car when it ran the stop sign, with the other half being asked the approximate speed of the car when it made its right turn. All the students were then asked if they'd seen the stop sign. 53% of those reminded of the stop sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign, while only 35% of those not reminded of the sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign. Well, this shows how the questioning of a witness can inadvertently "enhance" their memory.

And not just for the better. For another 1975 study she showed forty subjects a short videotape of a student demonstration. At the end of the tape, she handed out some questionnaires in which she asked half the students the sex of the leader of "the four demonstrators", and the other half the sex of the leader of "the twelve demonstrators." A week later the subjects returned to answer additional questions. At this time, they were asked the number of demonstrators they'd observed. The correct answer was eight. Even so, those who'd been asked the "four" question recalled seeing an average of 6.4 demonstrators (an apparent compromise between the four they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed), and those who'd been asked the "twelve" question recalled seeing an average of 8.9 (an apparent compromise between the twelve they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed).

This tendency to compromise was further studied in 1977. In this study, the subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. They were then asked a series of questions about the slides. One of the questions dealt with the color of a car passing the accident. This car was actually green. Half the subjects were asked about the blue car driving past the accident, with the other half being asked the same question, but without being told the car was blue. The subjects then engaged in another activity. When they returned to the study, twenty minutes later, the subjects were shown a color wheel containing thirty color strips and asked to match these to ten objects they'd observed on the slides. Those who'd been asked about a blue car "tended to pick a blue or bluish-green as the color that they remembered for the car that passed the accident. Those not given any color information tended to choose a color near the true green. Thus, the introduction of the false color information significantly affected the ability of subjects to correctly identify a color that they had seen before."

On page 58 she cites another of her studies in which subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. (I think we can presume these were the same slides used in her earlier study...) Half were then asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a stop sign, with the other half being asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a yield sign. (There were, in fact, two different sets of slides, one showing it stop at a stop sign, and one showing it stop at a yield sign.) In any event, when shown slides a bit later in which the car was by one of the signs and asked if they'd seen this slide before, 75% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about the sign which they'd been shown answered affirmatively. Now, that's no surprise. But, here's the shocker: 59% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about a sign they had not been shown also answered affirmatively when shown a slide of that sign. This, to be clear, was a sign they had not been shown, but they claimed to recognize anyway, twenty minutes after being asked a question in which the nature of the sign--stop or yield--was misrepresented. Now, the control question for this study suggests that 25% of those shown an image of a sign they'd been shown will fail to recognize it. And this in turn supports that 25% of those claiming to have seen a sign they'd not been shown would have claimed they'd seen it even if they'd never been asked a misleading question. But this still suggests that 34% of the subjects were led to recall seeing something they'd never seen... from being asked a question that suggested they'd seen it.

Loftus then cites a similar study in which her students served as subjects. She showed them a film of a car racing down a country road. Some of them were then asked about a barn on the side of the road. A week later, all of the students were asked if they recalled seeing a barn in the film. 17% of those asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn, while only 3% of those not asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn. No barn was shown in the film. It follows, then, that 14% of the students were fooled into thinking they saw a barn just by being asked about it.

She then cites another less scientific study involving her students. In this one, her students staged a fake theft, in which a woman left her bag unattended in a crowded place and a man pretended to steal something out of her bag. The woman then returned to her bag and cried out that a tape recorder had been stolen. She and a friend then took the phone numbers of a number of witnesses. A student posing as an insurance agent called a week later. Well, more than half the witnesses claimed they saw the supposedly stolen (but actually non-existent) tape recorder, with some of them describing it in great detail.

She then cites another study involving saliency, to which those citing her book should have referred. This one is from 1977, by Dritsas and Hamilton. For this study subjects were shown films of industrial accidents, and then asked a series of questions--some deliberately misleading--about the films. Well, to no one's surprise, they found that salient or central items or events were recalled more accurately--and were less likely to be altered by misleading information--than peripheral items. But look at these numbers. The subjects were but 47% accurate on peripheral items. Even worse, their recollections of peripheral items could be altered via misleading information 69% of the time. Now let's see how they fared on central items. The recollections of the subjects on central items were but 81% accurate. (That's a far cry from the 98% suggested by the study depicted in Loftus' Figure 3.1). More telling, though, is this. 47% of those correctly recalling a central item or event recalled it incorrectly after receiving misleading information.

This all leads up to the largest study cited by Loftus, this one involving 600 subjects. For this study, she once again showed the subjects a series of slides involving a stop sign or yield sign, and once again asked some of the subjects a subsequent question in which they were given misleading information about the sign they'd been shown. But for this one, she asked some of the subjects what they saw immediately after viewing the slides, and asked some of them the same question one day, two days, or even a week later.

The results were staggering. While those questioned immediately after viewing the slides--and not asked any misleading questions regarding the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown 80% of the time, those questioned a week later--and asked a misleading question about the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown but 20% of the time.

Our memories are fragile. They are subject to change within moments of their creation, based upon subsequently received information. They also erode with time, and grow more subject to change as time goes by. The reception of misleading information can not only compromise our memories, where we remember things partly as they were and partly as we've been told they were, but lead us to recall seeing things we never saw, and remember things that never happened.

But who am I to blather on? Here is Loftus' own summary of her findings, as published in her memoir, Witness for the Defense (1991): "As new bits and pieces of information are added into long-term memory, the old memories are removed, replaced, crumpled up, or shoved into corners. Memories don't just fade...they also grow. What fades is the initial perception, the actual experience of the events. But every time we recall an event, we must reconstruct the memory, and with each recollection the memory may be changed--colored by succeeding events, other people's recollections or suggestions...Truth and reality, when seen through the filter of our memories, are not objective facts but subjective, interpretive realities."

As a result, I'm forced to reject the primacy of the Parkland witnesses. Their statements have been erratic from the get-go, and have only grown more erratic over time. Those holding them up as a "smoking gun" in the JFK case both misrepresent the location of the wound described by the bulk of these witnesses, and the consistency of these witnesses as a whole. There's just no "there" there.

Of course, this is a double-edged sword. The memories of those deferring to the accuracy of the autopsy photos twenty-five years after the shooting are not necessarily more credible than the memories of those claiming they saw cerebellum, and that's it. While the one group is seemingly more malleable, the other is seemingly less reasonable. It's impossible to say who is right based upon words and words alone.

So that's a choice I choose not to make.

The autopsy photos, x-rays, and autopsy report are consistent with the recollections of the Dealey Plaza witnesses. And for me that is enough...

To read this post, one would never guess that suspects are charged and convicted based solely or mostly on eyewitness testimony all the time. It happens every day in our courts. In most cases, many if not the majority of the witnesses did not give their accounts immediately after the event but anywhere from half an hour to an hour to several days or even weeks after the fact. 

I would like to see a study where dozens of witnesses independently make the same egregious mistake in describing a wound when they have clear reference points to which to associate the wound. We're not talking about a few people, but at least over two dozen who supposedly could not tell the difference between a wound above the right ear and a wound in the back of the head that included part of the occiput.

We're talking about nurses and morticians who handled the skull, for crying out loud. We're talking about a federal agent who saw the wound three times in one day, the first time being from just a few feet away and for several minutes. We're talking about a funeral home worker who held JFK's head in his hands while he helped put the body in the casket and who could feel the jagged edges of a large wound in the back of the head. 

[Pat Speer]

25 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

To read this post, one would never guess that suspects are charged and convicted based solely or mostly on eyewitness testimony all the time. It happens every day in our courts. In most cases, many if not the majority of the witnesses did not give their accounts immediately after the event but anywhere from half an hour to an hour to several days or even weeks after the fact. 

I would like to see a study where dozens of witnesses independently make the same egregious mistake in describing a wound when they have clear reference points to which to associate the wound. We're not talking about a few people, but at least over two dozen who supposedly could not tell the difference between a wound above the right ear and a wound in the back of the head that included part of the occiput.

We're talking about nurses and morticians who handled the skull, for crying out loud. We're talking about a federal agent who saw the wound three times in one day, the first time being from just a few feet away and for several minutes. We're talking about a funeral home worker who held JFK's head in his hands while he helped put the body in the casket and who could feel the jagged edges of a large wound in the back of the head. 

Loftus was perhaps the top "expert" on eyewitness testimony, and she testified on behalf of numerous defendants. I exchanged a number of emails with her and another top cognitive psychologist before coming to the conclusion the back of the head witnesses could have been mistaken, and both assured me there was no study directly correlating to what transpired with Kennedy. Around that time, I began re-reading what the "back of the head" witnesses actually said, and realized that they were not in lockstep or any such thing, and that most were consistent in one important regard--that when asked to depict the wound location they routinely pointed at a location ABOVE where those pushing the back of the head scenario claimed there was a wound. \

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

The 6thFloorMuseum ran some tests years ago.

They made a doll's house TSBD, with a clay Oswald with a clay Carcano. The clay Oswald had a gorilla head.

And they made a clay SSA Hickey with a clay AR15 sitting in the back of a clay Queen Mary. The clay Hickey had a gorilla head.

And they made a clay jfk & limo etc etc.

And they made a clay-motion cartoon of the jfk shooting.

A large bunch of extreme LNers were given one quick viewing of the  cartoon. They were firstly given a list of written questions to study & look out for & to answer immediately after their viewing.

Then this was repeated with a bunch of extreme CTers.

Not one of the LNers or CTers noticed that the clay driver (Greer) was a clay orangutan.

 

[Michael Griffith]

In fact, in some criminal cases, eyewitness accounts are given years after the fact but are still viewed as credible and reliable. 

In the case of the large back-of-head wound, we have written same-day accounts from several doctors. We have Agent Hill's 11/30/63 report in which he mentions seeing the wound and notes that he saw JFK's head three times on the day of the shooting, once for several minutes on the back of the limo, again at Parkland Hospital, and again at Bethesda (where he was specifically asked to view the wounds). We have extensive WC testimony from Parkland doctors and nurses who saw the wound. We have recorded private interviews with medical and non-medical personnel who saw the wound either at Parkland or Bethesda. We have the HSCA interviews in which numerous Parkland and Bethesda witnesses recalled seeing the wound. And, we have the ARRB interviews in which a number of witnesses, including several new ones, recalled seeing the wound or recalled seeing the wound in autopsy photos that were excluded from the official collection. 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Michael Griffith said:

In the case of the large back-of-head wound, we have written same-day accounts from several doctors. We have Agent Hill's 11/30/63 report in which he mentions seeing the wound and notes that he saw JFK's head three times on the day of the shooting, once for several minutes on the back of the limo, again at Parkland Hospital, and again at Bethesda (where he was specifically asked to view the wounds). We have extensive WC testimony from Parkland doctors and nurses who saw the wound. We have recorded private interviews with medical and non-medical personnel who saw the wound either at Parkland or Bethesda. We have the HSCA interviews in which numerous Parkland and Bethesda witnesses recalled seeing the wound. And, we have the ARRB interviews in which a number of witnesses, including several new ones, recalled seeing the wound or recalled seeing the wound in autopsy photos that were excluded from the official collection. 

 

But, don't you see Michael, the best gaping-head-wound witnesses are the ones who:

1. ...were civilians caught by surprise in Dealey Plaza when the president was shot, and who saw the wound at a distance for only a split second.
2. ...were doctors who later changes their minds where the wound was when they discovered that what they saw was inconsistent with the narrative the WC was pushing.
3. ...any doctor who made a statement at some point that can be taken  out of context, or otherwise misrepresented, for the purpose of supporting the official WC narrative.
4. ...any other witness cherry-picked by Pat Speer in order to support his preconceived notion that photographic evidence could not have been altered in the government coverup.

 

 

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

Meanwhile, upstairs in the recovery wards of Parklands & Bethesda, patients are recovering from all kinds of operations & sicknesses.

(Sicknesses which are largely due to a lifetime of eating & drinking factory-made-processed seed oils & starches & sugars & transfats)(ie carbohydrates & fibre)(& due to eating fruits & veggies & flours & fibre)(ie due to eating & drinking slow acting poizons). 

(Sicknesses such as auto-immune diseases of every kind)(obesity)(diabetes)(organ damage)(cancers)(heart problems)(etc etc). 

Patients at Parkland & Bethesda were/are fed all of the above krapp, & mobile patients can visit their nearest coin operated vending machine to get sugary drinks & eats.

It was thus in 1963, & it is thus in 2024.

Patients (& non patients) need to eat fat & protein (ie red meats)(grass fed), & fish is ok, & fowl is ok, & eggs are ok (free range), & (praps a little) dairy is ok (eg butter & cream & cheese etc).

This diet is called a carnivore diet.

Its best to not eat or use much virgin olive oil, but olive oil is much better than other oils (eg seed oils)(poizon).

I will have to change my avatar. I no longer eat fish & chips (potato) every day. I do eat fish but not covered in batter or breadcrumbs. And i have cut back the wine. 

Edited January 12 by Marjan Rynkiewicz