RESUMEN
In light of recent advances, this study updated a prior survey of eyewitness experts (S. M. Kassin, P. C. Ellsworth, & V. L. Smith, 1989). Sixty-four psychologists were asked about their courtroom experiences and opinions on 30 eyewitness phenomena. By an agreement rate of at least 80%, there was a strong consensus that the following phenomena are sufficiently reliable to present in court: the wording of questions, lineup instructions, confidence malleability, mug-shot-induced bias, postevent information, child witness suggestibility, attitudes and expectations, hypnotic suggestibility, alcoholic intoxication, the crossrace bias, weapon focus, the accuracy-confidence correlation, the forgetting curve, exposure time, presentation format, and unconscious transference. Results also indicate that these experts set high standards before agreeing to testify. Despite limitations, these results should help to shape expert testimony so that it more accurately represents opinions in the scientific community.
Asunto(s)
Derecho Penal , Testimonio de Experto , Psicología , Reconocimiento en Psicología , Adulto , Actitud , Recolección de Datos , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Memoria , Revelación de la VerdadRESUMEN
In Arizona v. Fulminante (1991), a U.S. Supreme Court majority stated that confessions are similar to, not fundamentally different from, other types of evidence. To evaluate this claim, three mock juror studies compared the impact of confessions to other common forms of evidence. In Experiment 1, participants read summaries of four criminal trials (murder, rape, assault, theft), each of which contained a confession, an eyewitness identification, character testimony, or none of the above. Significantly, the confessions produced the highest conviction rates. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants read a murder or assault trial containing all three types of evidence and made a series of midtrial judgments. Results indicated that the confession was seen as the most incriminating, followed by the eyewitness and character testimony. Although the comparisons we made are limited in certain respects, our findings suggest that confessions are uniquely potent.
Asunto(s)
Derecho Penal , Juicio , Percepción Social , Revelación de la Verdad , Análisis de Varianza , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
This research extended Kassin's (1985) finding that retrospective self-awareness (RSA) increases the correlation between eyewitness accuracy and confidence. In Experiment 1, 91 mock witnesses saw a crime, answered questions, made an identification decision, and rated their confidence. RSA increased the accuracy-confidence correlation for witnesses who made an identification and for those who were high but not low in public self-consciousness. A 2nd experiment varied accountability and revealed that high accountability increased the accuracy-confidence correlation but that the RSA effect occurred even under low-accountability conditions. In both studies, observers could not distinguish between accurate and inaccurate witnesses. Together, these findings define the limits of the RSA effect and provide mixed support for a self-perception account of this effect.
Asunto(s)
Atención , Concienciación , Recuerdo Mental , Autoimagen , Adulto , Derecho Penal , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Retención en PsicologíaRESUMEN
Previous researchers using between-subjects comparisons have found eyewitness confidence and accuracy to be only negligibly correlated. In this study, we examined the predictive power of confidence in within-subject terms. Ninety-six subjects answered, and made confidence ratings for, a series of questions about a crime they witnessed. The average between-subjects and within-subject accuracy-confidence correlations were comparably low: r = .14 (p less than .001) and r = .17 (p less than .001), respectively. Confidence is neither a useful predictor of the accuracy of a particular witness nor of the accuracy of particular statements made by the same witness. Another possible predictor of accuracy, response latency, correlated only negligibly with accuracy (r = -.09 within subjects), but more strongly with confidence (r = -.27 within subjects). This pattern was obtained for both between-subjects and within-subject comparisons. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
Asunto(s)
Atención , Derecho Penal , Jurisprudencia , Memoria , Recuerdo Mental , Percepción Visual , Adulto , HumanosRESUMEN
College students' attitudes toward mentally retarded criminal offenders and their estimates of the types of crimes most often committed by retarded persons were assessed through a survey. Based on the survey results, an experiment was conducted in which students' reactions to one of two different types of crimes committed by either a retarded or nonretarded person were examined. Results indicated that the retarded offender received a lighter sentence regardless of the type of crime, apparently because the students thought that he had been coerced into committing the crime and also into confessing to it. Implications of these results for cases involving retarded defendants were discussed.
Asunto(s)
Actitud , Crimen , Discapacidad Intelectual/psicología , Adulto , Agresión/psicología , Trastorno de Personalidad Antisocial/psicología , Derecho Penal , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , MotivaciónRESUMEN
The present study introduced a perceptual analogue technique in a developmental investigation of the discounting principle. Subjects watched animated films depicting the simultaneous movements of two triangles toward a goal--one that was pushed by an external object (facilitative cause present) and one that was not (faciliatative cause absent). Although college students understood the discounting principle (i.e., they perceived that the nonfacilitated triangle was more intrinsically motivated than the facilitated object), kindergarteners, second graders, and fourth graders surprisingly did not. However, because many children (mis) interpreted the "push" as an aversive stimulus, a second experiment illustrated a sequence in which one of two triangles was "carried" toward a goal. For this version, subjects in Grades 2, 4, and 6, and in college all made the discounting-consistent choice, and kindergarteners tended to do the same (p < .15). Age differences thus emerged only in subjects' ability to explain their responses. From these results, the development of the multiple sufficient cause schema is discussed, and methodological implications of the animated film technique are noted.
Asunto(s)
Percepción de Movimiento , Percepción Visual , Adulto , Niño , Desarrollo Infantil , Preescolar , Femenino , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMEN
Previous research in the development of causal schemata has relied upon verbal descriptions of behavior to convey causally relevant information. In the present study, however, a perceptual analogue of Kelley's augmentation principle was created in animated films depicting the movements of 2 objects toward a goal--1 which overcame an obstacle (inhibitory cause present) and 1 which did not (inhibitory cause absent). Both forced-choice and scalar measures indicated that kindergarten, second, and fourth graders all perceived greater motivation (internal facilitative cause) in the inhibited than noninhibited object, but that age differences emerged in the ability to explain these responses. In a second experiment, the 2 target objects were inhibited by obstacles of different sizes. For this quantitative version of the principle, age differences emerged for all measures; fourth graders and most second graders responded in accord with augmentation-principle predictions. These results were compared with the earlier findings that kindergarten and fourth-grade children did not understand this principle. The contrasting methods of stimulus presentation were discussed and implications of this technique for attribution research were noted.