GlennThigpen wrote:marg wrote:Well Dan I explained how and why Loftus's studies are not applicable to the Conneaut witness situation. Sure I had to keep repeating because both you and Glenn keep ignoring the points and keep talking in generalities that because memory can be manipulated therefore the Conneaut witnesses memories were possibly manipulated. But the study you site with Loftus involved a particular situation, in which she tested long term memory of people at their age of 5..which alone is very different to the Conneaut witnesses whose memory was being test when they were adults.
Marge, you are in error on this. The Loftus "lost in the mall" experiment involved 24 people from the ages of 18 to 55 who were asked to read a story about being lost in a mall when they were 5 years old. This is in the article "Creating False Memories". She had a 25 percent success rate with grown adults implanting entirely false memories.
I apologize for repeating myself to anyone reading this thread but Glenn.
Glenn I appreciate I didn't word the above well, but I've been talking on this topic a number of times, so I'm not suggesting nor have I ever suggested the studies by Loftus was with 5 year olds. I appreciate she carried on the study regarding the mall event..with adults as you say of the ages 18 -25. Once again Glenn her study was testing their memory at their age of 5..which as I pointed out to Dan is a time period people generally have weak memories..that's something Loftus acknowledges in a youtube I listened to. It's something most people I think would acknowledge. She also enlisted the help of parents who lied for the study and claimed that the trip to the mall and getting lost event happened. This is understandable, if people are questioned about an event such as a trip to a mall that might have happened to them at the age of 5 and they don't remember it but their parents say it occurred, of course they may after 3 sessions say it happened. It is not as if a trip to a mall at the age of 5 in which one got lost would be perceived as an unusual event for many people. It would have been unusual to have happened to myself because there were no indoor malls when I was 5 where I lived. But the conneaut witnesses's were recalling memories of an event which occurred when they were adults, of an event they say they were very familiar with of which they well remembered key features and other features they forgot. All except Artemas said they were exposed over a period of time, some had many conversations with Spalding about what the book was about.
Elizabeth Loftus in "Implanting False Memories wrote:
My students and I have now conducted more than 200 experiments involving over 20,000 individuals that document how exposure to misinformation induces memory distortion. In these studies, people "recalled" a conspicuous barn in a bucolic scene that contained no buildings at all, broken glass and tape recorders that were not in the scenes they viewed, a white instead of a blue vehicle in a crime scene, and Minnie Mouse when they actually saw Mickey Mouse. Taken together, these studies show that misinformation can change an individual's recollection in predictable and sometimes very powerful ways.
Ok Glenn..looking at this quote portion... "recalled" a conspicuous barn in a bucolic scene that contained no buildings at all, broken glass and tape recorders that were not in the scenes they viewed, a white instead of a blue vehicle in a crime scene, and Minnie Mouse when they actually saw Mickey Mouse." You will note or should note Glenn in these studies subjects were shown an event for a few seconds and asked to recall details. It was to mimic the situation witnesses might be in when exposed to a crime and then later questioned on details. Of course in those situations people are vulnerable to memory confusion. I'm sure you would appreciate that if exposed briefly to a scene you'd have difficultly remembering clearly all details. This study does not warrant dismissal of the Conneaut witness statements who were NOT exposed briefly to Spalding's book, who were not questioned on their memory of particular details that Hurlbut brought up but rather they testified to what they remembered and acknowledged various details generally they could recall.
Misinformation has the potential for invading our memories when we talk to other people, when we are suggestively interrogated or when we read or view media coverage about some event that we may have experienced ourselves. After more than two decades of exploring the power of misinformation, researchers have learned a great deal about the conditions that make people susceptible to memory modification. Memories are more easily modified, for instance, when the passage of time allows the original memory to fade.
The statement above is not specific enough to draw a conclusion about a specific case as with the Conneaut witnesses. Her studies were specific and from those studies one could apply their results to real life situations. So for the misinformation studies which were attempts to duplicate crime scenes, the conclusion one could draw is that witnesses with brief exposure to a crime scene could via leading questions incorporate false information into their memory of that scene. This being important in legal cases as it could lead to faulty convictions. And why one might asked were the subjects susceptible in these cases of interogations to memory recall misinformation, well it was because they had brief exposure to a scene and were unlikely to have strong memories on all details.
As far as "memory fades with time"...yes it does and the conneaut witnesses noted that phenomenon for themselves. But they also noted on some particulars they did remember clearly with the reason being they had frequent conversations and exposure to Spalding's work. They also pointed out having their memory jogged via access to a reading of the Book of Mormon. And we know retrieval of long term memory diminishes with time but that it can be aided by being exposed to the information again. So the phenomenon which the Conneaut witnesses describes is simply common knowledge for which a study isn't necessary.
Both you and Dan haven't offered a particular study which closely aligns with the particulars involved with the Conneaut witnesses and which would warrant an assumption that every single one of them would with good probablity have had faulty memory.
The Lost Tribes story as part of the Spalding fable is one good possibility. Another is the "straits of Darien" comment by John Miller. That was an idea proposed by Orson Hyde, I believe. He was one of the missionaries who preached the Book of Mormon to those of the Conneaut area.
I appreciate you hypothesize that perhaps some witnesses got confused from exposure to Ethan Smith's book VOTH but Ethan Smith's book didn't have character names Nephi and Lehi, wasn't written in biblical language and the probability they all were confused and mixed up Spalding's MSCC with Ethan smith's book over this lost tribes... is just too convoluted an explanation/hypothesis. There are much more reasonable better explanations. Your hypothesis assumes they all were exposed to Ethan Smith's book, and they all got confused having heard oR read about lost tribes in that book. It assumeS when they say when they say they well remembered due to frequent exposure they were all wrong and were confused on what they remembered mixing up Ethan Smith's book with the spalding manuscript...even though Spalding's MSCC was not about Indians being descended from House of Israel tribes. A more realistic explanation is the Conneaut witnesses who mentioned "lost tribes" correctly remembered Spalding's work and were not interested in being devious and so despite that there is but a brief mention of "lost tribes' in the Book of Mormon accurately recalled that Spalding's book was about some lost tribes of Israel migrating to America and being ancestors of American Indians.
The "straits of Darien" is supposed to be Parley Pratt. You are theorizing Miller and 3 other witnesses memories are faulty, that they are confused on the lost tribes and didn't hear or read it in Spalding's work but instead somewhere else, you then ignore the rest of their statements and claims to repeated exposure and good memory on some particulars and suggest (even though it's far fetched) that if those 4 could possibly all be confused about the "lost tribes" that that is justification for dismissing their statements and all the other conneaut witness statements. All this despite that you haven't established with a reasonable explanation they were likely confused.
The fact that those stories are not in the Book of Mormon poses credibility problems for the Conneaut witnesses no matter whether they were false memories or not.
Certainly Miller's mention of "straits of Darien" in no way poses a credibility problem for him..how you deduce is a mystery. And although I don't understand "lost tribes of house of israel" very well from what I can gather the tribe of Manasseh was part of the "lost tribes of the house of Israel". Then when one takes into account the lost 116 pages in which Spalding's work was replaced that could explain the Conneaut witnesses' different memory of Spalding's manuscript to that of the Book of Mormon. In this particular area I acknowledge a weak understanding of 'lost tribes' but Spalding's book was only partially used and of that which was used, it was likely changed in some respects. Roger and Dale have written some excellent posts discussing this issue which you've mentioned of lost tribes being mentioned in Spalding's work by 4 Conneaut witnesses and not much mention in Book of Mormon. I defer to them on this.