Trauma and eyewitness accounts

[technoextreme]

I was curious about whether or not a biology angle has ever been approached when trying to resolve conflicting witness testimony on 9/11. The ability to recall what actually happened varies wildly. One of these factors I remember is stress. I read that humans thrive on a little stress but there is a point where our ability to preform certain activities and remember certain just fails miserably. This certainly would explain some of the conficting testimony that truthers like to bandy.

 

[DGM]

To be honest with you I don't think that there is all that much conflicting eyewitness testimony. Most of the accounts that I see truthers jumping on a similes. You know sound like a bomb went of or there were explosions ect. Not much you can do about the way people tend to explain things.
I know I read a report about trauma induced amnesia but I'll have to look that up. It was kind of like a defense mechanism for the body.

 

[technoextreme]

To be honest with you I don't think that there is all that much conflicting eyewitness testimony. Most of the accounts that I see truthers jumping on a similes. You know sound like a bomb went of or there were explosions ect. Not much you can do about the way people tend to explain things.
I know I read a report about trauma induced amnesia but I'll have to look that up. It was kind of like a defense mechanism for the body.

I agree with you that there isn't much conflicting testimony. The problem is that the truthers jump on the one person whose testimony completly contradicts everyone else.

 

[DGM]

I agree with you that there isn't much conflicting testimony. The problem is that the truthers jump on the one person whose testimony completly contradicts everyone else.

They have to that's all they have. All you can really do is point out the conflict and move on. Most of the time they won't see it, but oh well.

BTW, welcome to the forum.

 

[Kryptos]

Reliability of eyewitness testimony and especially lineup identifications is an important area of research, having been the subject of a number of Supreme Court cases.

Most eyewitness testimony and identifications are accurate. However, some factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness accounts and identification include things like illumination conditions, duration of time the witness experienced the event, the object (e.g. getaway car) is moving (fast?), and distance between witness and object. Trauma isn't so much of a factor as these other situational factors. Wording of questions asked to witnesses is important. When talking to witnesses, it's important to ask open-ended questions. Leading questions are inherently problematic.

If you are asking about what side of the Citgo the airplane was on (which was travelling ~500 mph), the speed of the airplane and illumination conditions, as well as poorly worded questions, would be factors that could make witness testimony inaccurate. Surely, Lytetrip is not qualified to go around asking appropriate questions to witnesses.

 

[technoextreme]

Trauma isn't so much of a factor as these other situational factors.

I don't think it was trauma more than it was stress. We humans our odd beings. We can focus on one object in a movie and not even realize there is a monkey dancing in the background. No. Im not making this up. Someone actually set up a legitimate research project involving having people count the number of times a ball was passed. The true test involved the monkey in the background.

BTW, welcome to the forum.

Thanks.

 

[gumboot]

I don't think it was trauma more than it was stress. We humans our odd beings. We can focus on one object in a movie and not even realize there is a monkey dancing in the background. No. Im not making this up. Someone actually set up a legitimate research project involving having people count the number of times a ball was passed. The true test involved the monkey in the background.
Thanks.

There's even simplier and older problem solving examples of this...

Consider the age old "A bus is driving along, with six people on board, at the first stop three people get off and four get on, then at another stop two people get on and no one gets off. At the next stop..."

And so on. The question is "How many stops did the Bus make?"

People take cues from our environment regarding what we should focus on. In doing so we often completely block out anything else.

(Incidentally this is a phenomenon every good filmmaker is consciously aware of, and using to good effect in "twist" films such as Fight Club and The Usual Suspects)

This is a major problem with Lyte Trip's theory. In the situation of AA77's crash, the environmental cues tell you to focus on where the aircraft is headed, and if it will crash. You don't pay attention to which side of a gas station it is on, because that information isn't actually vital to your survival.

-Gumboot

 

[T.A.M.]

The recollection of even a brief, but traumatic event, can be distinctly vivid to the victim/witness of said event, but only to a degree.

Very rarely is such a victim/witness able to recall many specifics. They have vivid imagery of the event, but most of it is non specific. A victim of a mugging may remember a certain phrase their attacker used, or the color of his jacket. Rarely will they be able to recall large amounts of accurate data on the attack.

Likewise, witnesses to the crash likely remember vividly the "roar" of the plane as it flew by, perhaps the flare of a blue paint strip on the plane's side. What they will not likely be able to recall in definite detail, are the exacts of a "flight path" or the exact characteristics of the engine "roar".

of course, the KEY is the temporal space between the event and recollection. The further ahead in time we go, the more unreliable the recollection, and the harder it is, in general, for the witness to recollect the event at all.

TAM