Skeptics often point out that witness testimony is not reliable. As an example they point to is that test done in a classroom in which a spontaneous event was acted out in front of the students. Right after the event they asked all the students to detail what they saw. Even though it just happened almost 25% of them got it wrong. This is used as evidence that witness testimony is not reliable but they're really missing something here. That is that 75% of the people got it right.
I believe the experiment with a revolver/pistol usually has one shot fired or none fired. No shot spanning to be recreated in the mind.
It is the consistency of the majority that detectives use to determine which Witnesses are correct.
Ever heard tell of the Innocence Project?
The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a study
by the United States Department of Justice and United States
Senate, in conjunction with the Jewish Yeshiva University's
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which claimed that
incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a factor in over
70% of wrongful convictions.
There are many reasons why wrongful convictions occur.
The most common reason is false eyewitness identification,
which played a role in more than 75% of wrongful convictions
overturned by the Innocence Project. Often assumed to be
incontrovertible, a growing body of evidence suggests that
eyewitness identifications are unreliable.
-- Wikipedia
The majority of the Witnesses in the JFK case said the last two shots came closer together.
I think they're right about generalities, like the number of shots and seeing Kennedy struck in the head and the left-behind motorcade pausing at the top of Elm and on Houston. But shot spanning strikes me as a non-priority detail and for some an afterthought; I doubt any of the witnesses were prepared to or thought to assess shot spanning in real time.
A review of the student responses apparently reveals that most
of the students got the prominent facts right, but varied on lots of
subsidiary details, and that they omitted important facts.
(
Link )
In about 75% of them felt the shots came almost at the same time or within a second of each other. It would be interesting to compile a list of witnesses that gave their statements within a half hour of the assassination and compare that to people who gave statements that weekend or the week after or long after.
So you think the witness record supports the last two shots occurred within a second of each other, which I guess would be shots that struck near Z295-onward and at Z313.
It that's not right, then 75% of the 75% actually did get it wrong.
Those students in the class we're asked again after a few days and their accuracy went from 75% to 60%. Would be interesting to see the difference between Witnesses from Friday the 22nd and a few days later and see how that compares to the 60%.
Seems like apples and oranges the classroom experiment compared to the assassination.