Robert Paul

[Newbie]

Bucks row was not an echo chamber - Cross and Paul passed through it unheard by anyone else nearby. It's not a matter of sound "escaping" it's a matter of the air vibrations attenuating over distance, diffusing in different directions when striking uneven surfaces, and being absorbed by rougher solid materials that they strike. Wind also affects sound detection, not just by providing additional background noise, but sound propagates further in the direction the wind is blowing, and less far into the wind. On that day, the winds varied from the west to northwest, so sound would have travelled slightly further going west to east than going east to west.

An echo chamber is descriptive: it means the energy of the sound waves traveling up or down the eastern end of Buck's row diminish far less rapidly than in most other circumstances, due to its narrowness and the sound waves reflecting off the stone, and not being absorbed by this material.

They attenuate far less readily than in most other circumstances.

Somewhat of a moot point right now, the argument centering on why Lechmere only happened to hear the footsteps when approximate to the body, but didn't hear them for up to a full minute previous to that.

He heard footstep while next to the body, took a few steps to the center of the street, and then made up the part of finally hearing Paul's footsteps at that point to appear as if he didn't come from the body.

Pretty simple explanation that explains why he didn't bother to check Polly Nichol's vitals (doing nothing more than holding her hand) and why he abruptly cut off the examination so soon, without a firm conclusion, after being the one who enticed Paul to come help out.

Any theories value is greatly aided by further explanative powers or its correctness is to be questioned.

But, I prefer to stick with some explanation on why Lechmere finally heard Paul's footsteps, when his mind was focused on the visual analysis of the tarpaulin/body.

[Newbie]

I don't know why one sound drowning out another would be a debated point. Hasn't everyone experienced this in their own lives?

Another factor affecting whether or not something is heard is how one's attention is focused. My refrigerator door doesn't always close all the way if I don't make a special effort to close it right. If it doesn't quite close all the way, it sounds a little different than if it does. Sometimes I notice this difference and go back and push the door closed. Other times I don't notice the difference in sound, not because it wasn't loud enough, but because I'm not paying attention, and the door ends up not getting all the way closed until I notice later that it looks different.

The sounds we are talking about are self created - that of one's footsteps ....
there is an evolutionary value in ignoring these sounds so that they do not block out the stealthy footsteps of a predator (a problem for our ancestors) and current scientific research focuses on how the brain goes about doing it .... there is no important information in these self produced repetitive sounds, and it appears that the motor cortex, which deals with balance when in motion, literally informs the auditory cortex to ignore these type of sounds. New information in self producing sounds would be stepping into a puddle or new material, that you hadn't noticed. New information would also be some other person's footsteps.

We are not talking about a jack hammer, or the bustle of streets, or other sounds that are produced by other people and things, they may well interference with our hearing slighter sounds like another persons footsteps.

That is not the issue here .... and I can't stress that point strongly enough.

[Newbie]

Maybe he did but did not feel the need to record it in his memory, maybe there was some other sound masking out the footfall. Maybe Cross was not that focused on hearing things that were not consequential. Maybe Paul was a light walker. It's an impossible question to answer without further evidence which unfortunately we do not have. Remember at the relevant point in time Paul was in a hurry and Cross was not 'behind time' so the gap between the two men will have been gradually reduced over time. They were not a constant distance apart. Unfortunately we do not know what that distance was at any point until Cross heard Paul coming up Bucks Row.

Hi Geddy,

maybe here needs to be some study that you post her which demonstrates hearing something on the subconscious level and ignoring it on the conscious level.

Since there is no evolutionary benefit in housing sounds in the 'subconscience', I really struggle with considering this a half way serious possibility.

As for Paul treading lightly, that is not the issue because Lechmere did hear him ..... it just took quite a bit of time, and his attention at that time was visually focused on an alarming situation: a woman's body on the ground, the most unlikely moment to finally hear those footsteps.

However, Paul did say in the Lloyd's article that he was hurrying along ... so, he was not treading lightly to do that.

[Newbie]

I already answered this in Post 86.

"On Friday morning he left home about half past three to go to work, and passing through Buck's row he saw on the opposite side something lying against a gateway. In the dark he could not tell at first what it was. It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he saw it was the figure of a woman. At the same time he heard a man about forty yards away coming up Buck's row in the direction witness had himself come."

40 yards is a rough estimate of distance based on hearing, not sight. Also, that is the distance at which Cross first noticed Paul - obviously Paul was making noise before that.

The human brain tends to filter out noises it considers unimportant. A man walking behind you is less important than a man approaching after you have stopped. Auditory masking means louder sounds tend to mask softer sounds. Unless Robert Paul was particularly heavy footed, the sound of his footsteps would have been less audible to Cross than the sound of Cross' own footsteps. Auditory sensing is reduced when walking, so Paul would have been much easier to hear once Cross stopped walking in the middle of the road. Once Lechmere spotted something ahead of him, his brain would have focused on identifying it - from just a shape, to maybe a tarpaulin, to it's a woman. Once he perceived it was a woman, his visual perception load dropped significantly, which science tells us is exactly when Lechmere would be most likely to become much better at noticing auditory stimuli.

When Charles Cross stopped in the middle of the road, his ability to notice auditory stimuli would have increased in multiple ways and auditory masking would have stopped. This is exactly the point we would expect Cross to first notice Paul's footsteps.

Thankyou for refreshing my memory fiver.

I once lived by an airport and at the beginning would always hear the decent of the planes flying over head. After a few days, I stopped noticing .... the auditory cortex in my brain learned to stop responding to these sounds .... probably a group of inhibitory neurons that somehow recognized them. If a plane was off course, headed towards my apartment complex, i'm sure I would have heard that.

To your point, the sounds of someone suddenly coming from behind you on a dark and dangerous street would be considered important enough to most people. Remember, we evolved from creatures that were preyed upon .... it's of fundamental importance that they adapted accordingly, or didn't pass on their genes.

And in continuation, evaluating the gender of the body would not be the end of his visual task ... 'what was wrong with her?' would be his next visual task.

And there is no reason why he would stop in the middle of the street once determining that it was not a tarpaulin, but a woman;
unless he didn't give a damn, because he was purely motivated out of a need for the tarpaulin, as some claim.

He never said that he stopped before hearing the sound ... something about entering/moving into the middle of the street.
People are speculating on that matter.

[Lewis C]

The sounds we are talking about are self created - that of one's footsteps ....
there is an evolutionary value in ignoring these sounds so that they do not block out the stealthy footsteps of a predator (a problem for our ancestors) and current scientific research focuses on how the brain goes about doing it .... there is no important information in these self produced repetitive sounds, and it appears that the motor cortex, which deals with balance when in motion, literally informs the auditory cortex to ignore these type of sounds. New information in self producing sounds would be stepping into a puddle or new material, that you hadn't noticed. New information would also be some other person's footsteps.

We are not talking about a jack hammer, or the bustle of streets, or other sounds that are produced by other people and things, they may well interference with our hearing slighter sounds like another persons footsteps.

That is not the issue here .... and I can't stress that point strongly enough.

Louder sounds drown out softer sounds, even if the louder sounds are self-created.

[drstrange169]

"Well, here's your rebuttal to what I wrote ..."

I confess, at first I was confused by your repeated claims that people said things they clearly didn't, but I now see you don't even understand what you are writing in your own posts.

I didn't offer a rebuttal, you even quote me claiming that I'm not offering a rebuttal, and yet here you are claiming I did!

Looking over your posts in this thread, nothing you claim seems to accord with the actual facts of the case, as I've pointed out in a previous post.


Here is your latest,

"Here's the the relevant two sentences in question from Lechmere's testimony, that hardly varies between newspaper versions:

'He walked into the middle of the road, and saw that it was the figure of a woman. He then heard the footsteps of a man going up Buck's-row about forty yards away, in the direction that he himself had come from.'"

Your quote is from the Daily Telegraph, not only does it vary from all the other reporters accounts, it contains a good deal of information we know to be untrue.

" ... He then heard the "footsteps" of a man going up Buck's-row ..."

No other report makes that claim. All other reports, including the Echo which quotes Cross in the first person, claims he actually said,

"At the same time I heard a man come up behind, in the same direction as I was going."

There is no mention that what he heard was footsteps, no other reporter claims he heard "footsteps". Whilst it's quite possible it was footsteps he heard, to could equally be any sound that attracted Cross's attention. A cough, a sneeze, treading or kicking some street rubbish, a change of pace, the possibilities are endless.

Ergo, your claim,

"Lechmere himself "definitely" says that didn't notice Paul walking behind him, until noticing Paul's "footsteps" .."

is not true and therefore needs no rebuttal.

Similarly, your comparison to Thain's wooden shoes doesn't stand up to scrutiny, nor does the echo chamber claim accord with the half dozen witnesses comments about the night.

And, I have absolutely no idea why you claim Cross mentioned 25 seconds anywhere in his testimony.