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JURY COMPREHENSION OF EXPERT EVIDENCE, Language is also used as a…
JURY COMPREHENSION OF EXPERT EVIDENCE
THE CHALLENGES POSED BY EXPERT EVIDENCE
PERVEIVERS
Tend to rely on shortcuts called
Heuristics
the quick-decision rules/shortcuts we learn from experience
Schemas
Apply to a range of other types of constructs i.e. roles and events
Stereotypes based on prior knowledge of things - they are like our personal theories about what things are like.
Generally functional, use of schemas is normal as they help us deal with large amounts of information in day-to-day life.
They can be inaccurate and, therefore lead to poor outcomes
Stereotypes
A mental representation of information about a social catagory. Can include information about whether we feel positively or negatively about people within that catagory
What people in a social catagory are like (attributes), their behaviours and their roles socially
A specific example of a schema
Using these shortcuts in research help us determine juror comprehension of expert evidence
The more these cues influence juror perception, the less they're relying on the expert's message content, therefore, its more likely the juror's perception is impaired
MODELS OF JURY DECISON-MAKING
COGNITIVE STORY MODEL
Jurors construct narratives during the trial to organise and interpret evidence
Jurors evaluate and interpret all subsequent evidence, as it is presented, in line with this story
Juror's schemas & stereotypes are helpful in informing the 'story'. Especially when trying to understand missing elements of the story
Provide templates for what certain types of people and events are like, so jurors can fill in missing details
DUAL PROCESS MODELS
Describe two ways in which decisions/evaluations are made
Originally made to understand persuasion and attitude change
been adapted to the jury context
Thinking about a jury trial as a series of persuasive messages is a productive way to answer questions about how jurors make their decisions
ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL
Describes TWO distinct modes/routes or persuasion
CENTRAL ROUTES
Involes more EFFORTFUL thinking
Amount of favourable elaboration about the message influences the persusion
The more you think about the benefits, as opposed to costs, the more you will be persuaded
Used when issues are important to us and when time and cognitive capacity is available to us
PERIPHERAL ROUTES
Involes LESS thinking
The strength of the message content is less important, you're more likely to be persuaded if the message is associated with other things that are positively evaluated
Positive stereotyping about the type of person giving you the message will make you more likely to be persuaded by said message
If you think scientists are trustworthy, you're more likely to view evidence from a scientist positively reguardless of the content of their evidence
Used when there is a limited amount of time to think about the message, when we're distracted or when the issue isn't important
Each route involes different amounts of thinking
Amounts of thinking = How much a person elaborates about a persuasive message
Elaboration = looking at the number of postitive or negative thoughts generated by a message
If a high number of pros and cons are produced when a person is given a persuasive message indicates a high level of elaboration from the individual
ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING ALL THESE MODELS
People like to put in the minimum amount of cognitive effort as possible
Lead to people calling perceivers 'cognitive misers' or 'mental sluggards'
We use stereotypes strategically to maximise the amount of information that can be stored in our brains under taxing conditions
Stereotypes help us encode some of the information so that we can than turn attention to other facets of the information
According to this perspective, percievers engage in as much thinking about unexpected, or stereotype-inconsistent information as possible
A study found participants spent more time reading and thinking about stereotype-inconsistent behaviours and consequently recalled a greater amount of these behaviours than stereotype-consistent behaviours.
When perceivers used stereotypes to encode information, they were able to allocate more of their thinking capacity to other cognitive tasks
Seen as a strategy to maxamise/optimise the amount of information encoded
Cognitive resources are conserved by encoding stereotype-congruent targets relatively effortlessly in terms of the relevant stereotype, allowing more effortful thinking to be used in relation to stereotype-incogruent targets
IMPACT OF THE FORM OF EXPERT EVIDENCE
Evidence including probabilties could influence jurors
Research shows the jurors tend to undervalue statistical evidence when it is presented in the context of other evidence
Other research suggests that while jurors are susceptible to some fallacies when reasoning about probabilities, these tend to favour the defence
Presentation format used by the expert can make that evidence more or less persuasive
When evidence was presented one way, decision-makers were more convinced that the suspect was almost certainly the source of the DNA sample, when presented another way, a substantial portion concluded that the suspect could not have been the source
Probability of a match was presented either as a percentage in relation to a single target i.e. As a 0.1% likelihood of a chance match with this specific defendant
This presentation is designed to make it more difficult to think of examples of other chance matches to the DNA sample
The probability that it is a chance match seems like a very small number, close to zero, so the defendant must be the source of the DNA
This presentation is much more persuasive than the other one, and led people to conclude that the defendant was the actual source of the DNA
The effect of this presentation disappeared as the probabilities became smaller.
As the probabilty approaches the size of the population in the context, the harder it becomes to imagine chance matches
Or presented as an equivalent frequency in relation to multiple targets i.e. one in 1000 people in the specific city where the accused lived
This presentation makes it easy to reason that if the probability of a chance match is one in 1000 and we assume there is one million people in the city, that means there are about 1000 people who would match the DNA by chance alone
Since its easy to think of someone who matches the sample by chance, it is also possible that the defendant matches the sample by chance, not because they are the actual source of the DNA
INFLUENCE OF EXPERT CHARACTERISTIC ON JUROR COMPREHENSION
Extra-legal cue of the expert's credentials influenced the participants
More persuaded when the expert had strong credentials - BUT only when the expert's evidence was complex
When the evidence is simple, participants were influenced by what the expert said rather than their credentials
Participants were using the cue of the expert's credentials when they couldn't directly evaluate the content of what the expert said because the language was too difficult to understand
The expert's gender played a role
Earlier research suggested that female experts were more persuasive then male experts
More research showed that if the expert's gender matched the domain of their expertise they were more persuasive
Shows gender is used as a heuristic cue
IMPACT OF EXPERT REMUNERATION
If an expert testifies in court frequently and is identified as being paid for their services affects how jurors think about the expert's evidence
This is called the 'hired-gun' effect
Testifying frequently for a fee gives the impression that the expert it 'just in it for the money'. This makes them less trustworthy in participants eyes, therefore, they were less persuaded by their evidence
Studies show this is the result of cognitive shortcuts
The effect was present in complex, but not simple language
Shortcuts such as heuristics are most prominent when percievers are not able to think through the information context systematically
Complex language made it hard for participants to evaluate the expert's evidence systematically, so they resorted to a shortcut
Language is also used as a heuristic cue
This is because perceivers have expectations of how men and women speak - we expect men to use more complex language than women
One study found male experts were more persuasive than female experts when they used complex language and percievers were under high levels of cognitive demand
Jurors expect experts to use complex language especially if they're men