No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Evaluating Videotaped Confessions: Expertise Provides No Defense Against the Camera-Perspective Effect
... They concluded that Bthe point of view from which a confession is videotaped can have a considerable impact on observers' judgments of whether that confession was voluntary or coerced^ (Lassiter and Irvine 1986: 272). This bias has been found repeatedly by Lassiter and his colleagues across various types of crimes (Lassiter et al. 1992), contexts (e.g., Lassiter et al. 2002a), and populations (Lassiter et al. 2007) and has been extended by other researchers to different types of confessions (e.g., journalistic; Landstrom et al. 2007), observer testimonies (child witnesses; Landstrom and Granhag 2008;automobile drivers;Hennessy and Jakubowski 2007), and in countries other than the USA (Korea; Park and Pyo 2012). ...
... The issue is particularly concerning, since the bias appears to hold even when participants are allowed to deliberate before their assessment and are instructed to focus on the content of the interrogation and confession (Lassiter et al. 2002a). Recent evidence suggests that providing extensive instructions prior to the viewing may partially mitigate the effect of camera perspective on juror judgments (Elek et al. 2012), but experienced judges and law enforcement experts place great value on video evidence-and they are sensitive to camera perspective as well (Kahan et al. 2009;Lassiter et al. 2007). In short, the theory that a camera perspective bias affects the way videotaped interrogations by law enforcement are interpreted is robust and generalizable, although it has not provided a successful way to mitigate this bias (Lassiter et al. 2009). ...
... Because video footage is often crucial in the assessment of controversial situations (IACP 2005), the potential consequences of biased judgment in terms of conviction and public opinion are significant. Furthermore, even those who are expected to provide the most objective assessments of an intervention might be subject to bias as well: evaluations made by experienced judges and law enforcement officers of the voluntariness of a confession were sometimes significantly altered by camera perspective (Lassiter et al. 2007). ...
Objectives
Footage from body-worn cameras (BWCs) is sometimes used to assess the quality of police interventions. This study investigates whether there is a “body-worn camera perspective bias,” in which the point of view provided by the footage influences perception of an intervention. Methods
Participants with different backgrounds (undergraduate students and police candidates) were randomly allocated to a group that looked at one of two videos showing a fictional police intervention during which lethal force was used against a subject; both videos showed exactly the same intervention, but one had been filmed with a BWC and the other with a surveillance camera installed in a top corner of the room. Participants were then asked to rate the appropriateness of the intervention. ResultsNo camera perspective bias was found among university respondents. However a significant camera perspective bias was found among police candidates: respondents’ opinions on the appropriateness of the intervention were significantly different when the film was from the body-worn camera than when it was seen from the surveillance camera. This result may be explained by the finding that viewers of the BWC footage reported that the subject was further from the officer. Conclusions
Results suggest that the more training individuals have in analyzing police interventions, the more affected they will be by the camera perspective in these interventions. One implication of these results is that the perspective of people assigned and trained to evaluate the appropriateness of an intervention (e.g., members of a committee monitoring police misconduct) might be biased if only video footage from a BWC is presented.
... Findings indicate that confessions are seen as more reliable and voluntary (as opposed to coerced by the police officer) when the camera is focused only on the suspect, compared with videos depicting the police officer or videos depicting both the suspect and police officer (Landstrom et al., 2007;Lassiter et al., 2007;Lassiter & Irvine, 1986). These findings were obtained even when viewers were cautioned about the camera perspective bias (Lassiter et al., 2002), and when viewers consisted of experienced judges and legal professionals (Lassiter et al., 2007). ...
... Findings indicate that confessions are seen as more reliable and voluntary (as opposed to coerced by the police officer) when the camera is focused only on the suspect, compared with videos depicting the police officer or videos depicting both the suspect and police officer (Landstrom et al., 2007;Lassiter et al., 2007;Lassiter & Irvine, 1986). These findings were obtained even when viewers were cautioned about the camera perspective bias (Lassiter et al., 2002), and when viewers consisted of experienced judges and legal professionals (Lassiter et al., 2007). ...
Some research suggests that video‐recorded police incidents may be subject to a camera perspective bias. This study examined whether the camera angle of a recorded police use of force encounter influenced interpretation of the video. Participants (n = 330) viewed a video‐recorded simulated use of force scenario in one of four camera angle conditions (body worn camera, bystander camera, security camera, all three camera angles), and then rated the conduct of the police officer and the subject. Participants' attitudes towards the police and legal system were also examined. Results indicated that camera angle did not directly impact viewers' judgment of the scenario, but pre‐existing biases about the police guided their interpretations of certain camera angles. Importantly, however, this was not the case for those who viewed the body worn camera angle. These results help us understand the implications of relying on video recordings of police incidents.
... The judge said that "it is undisputed and undeniable McDonald was an armed assailant" (Lockhart, 2019), while activists say the video shows "McDonald was not attacking or seeking to attack any of the law enforcement officers" (Bosman & Davey, 2019). To better understand what factors shape these divergent views, over the past 20 years there has been a rapid increase in the number of studies investigating interracial police officer-civilian interactions across disciplines (Culhane, Boman, & Schweitzer, 2016;Jennings, Fridell, & Lynch, 2014) as well as calls to understand the potential biases and benefits of using video evidence in courtrooms (Granot, Balcetis, Feigenson, & Tyler, 2018;Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). Because it is often difficult for researchers to obtain these types of stimuli, we introduce the IPOC (interracial police officer-civilian) Database, a freely available set of naturalistic, interracial police officer-civilian arrest interactions. ...
... Video-based evaluations may differ depending on the viewing perspective, such as a first-person (e.g., body-worn camera or BWC) or a third-person (e.g., surveillance cameras) perspective. For example, studies have demonstrated that video evidence focusing exclusively on the civilians using BWC tend to lead to harsher judgments of the civilians and less severe judgments of the police officers than videos depicting the entire scene using surveillance cameras (Lassiter et al., 2007;Lassiter, Geers, Handley, Weiland, & Munhall, 2002). Because a video's perspective can impact evaluations even when people are experts or forewarned about possible biases, investigating how perceivers' evaluations are affected by various perspectives will ultimately be important for understanding the impact of the broad array of increasingly available video-recordings of police officer-civilian interactions. ...
... "Illusory causation occurs when people ascribe unwarranted causality to a stimulus simply because it is more noticeable or salient than other available stimuli" (Lassiter et al., 2002, p. 299). For example, research informed by the ICP paradigm has examined effects triggered by exposure to certain forms of videotaped footage of custodial interrogations (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). Individuals were exposed to either a videotape in which the camera directly focused on a suspect during an interrogation (alone, no other individuals visible) or footage showing the identical interrogation taped from multiple camera angles (both suspect and interrogator visible). ...
... Individuals were exposed to either a videotape in which the camera directly focused on a suspect during an interrogation (alone, no other individuals visible) or footage showing the identical interrogation taped from multiple camera angles (both suspect and interrogator visible). Footage showing suspects alone led participants to judge suspects more negatively (e.g., assessing them more likely to be guilty; Lassiter et al., 2007). ...
Previous framing effects research has largely examined textual and visual influences separately, thus neglecting potential interaction effects between the two communication channels. The present study used a 2 ´ 2 experiment to examine the textual and visual influences in a separate manner and in an integrated way. It was tested how, if at all, textually and/or visually isolating a politician involved in scandal affects news consumers' perceptions. Results revealed that textual isolation cues had no effect. In contrast, visual isolation resulted in more negative candidate evaluations. Yet, this effect was only detected in the absence of textual isolation cues. Negative evaluations, in turn, decreased participants' intention to vote for the politician depicted.
... Other researchers have assessed how the interrogation is viewed on video, also referred to as camera perspective, and have criticized current agencies that record interrogations claiming that the camera perspective plays an important factor in interpreting the voluntariness of the confession (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). If the camera is focused on the suspect during the interrogation, the interpretation of the confession is more voluntary in comparison to when the camera has both the interrogator and suspect within its line of sight. ...
... In a study that examined how the camera perspective affects the viewer"s interpretation of an interrogation as voluntary or involuntary, respondents included both judges and law enforcement. Confessions were perceived as more voluntary when the camera was focused on the suspect rather than when the camera was focused on the interrogator or on both (Lassiter et al., 2007). Due to these findings, the authors suggest camera perspective can create a bias when a confession is viewed for admissibility. ...
... To directly examine this possibility, Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, and Elek (2007) presented a group of judges possessing considerable relevant expertise (i.e., all had many years of previous experience as prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, and trial court judges hearing criminal cases) with either a suspect-focus, equal-focus, or interrogator-focus version of a mock interrogation and confession regarding a sexual assault. Results revealed that judges' evaluations of the voluntariness of the confession, like those of laypersons, were significantly affected by the camera perspective. ...
... Results revealed that judges' evaluations of the voluntariness of the confession, like those of laypersons, were significantly affected by the camera perspective. (Lassiter et al., 2007, also investigated whether the expertise of highly trained and experienced police interrogators made them any less susceptible than laypersons to the camera perspective bias. Like the judges, police interrogators proved to be no exception.) ...
... To directly examine this possibility, Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, and Elek (2007) presented a group of judges possessing considerable relevant expertise (i.e., all had many years of previous experience as prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, and trial court judges hearing criminal cases) with either a suspect-focus, equal-focus, or interrogator-focus version of a mock interrogation and confession regarding a sexual assault. Results revealed that judges' evaluations of the voluntariness of the confession, like those of laypersons, were significantly affected by the camera perspective. ...
... Results revealed that judges' evaluations of the voluntariness of the confession, like those of laypersons, were significantly affected by the camera perspective. (Lassiter et al., 2007, also investigated whether the expertise of highly trained and experienced police interrogators made them any less susceptible than laypersons to the camera perspective bias. Like the judges, police interrogators proved to be no exception.) ...
... To directly examine this possibility, Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, and Elek (2007) presented a group of judges possessing considerable relevant expertise (i.e., all had many years of previous experience as prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, and trial court judges hearing criminal cases) with either a suspect-focus, equal-focus, or interrogator-focus version of a mock interrogation and confession regarding a sexual assault. Results revealed that judges' evaluations of the voluntariness of the confession, like those of laypersons, were significantly affected by the camera perspective. ...
... Results revealed that judges' evaluations of the voluntariness of the confession, like those of laypersons, were significantly affected by the camera perspective. (Lassiter et al., 2007, also investigated whether the expertise of highly trained and experienced police interrogators made them any less susceptible than laypersons to the camera perspective bias. Like the judges, police interrogators proved to be no exception.) ...
This chapter draws on the psychological literature to emphasize some important issues that would be prudent for lawmakers to keep in mind in their pursuit of a sound videotaping policy. Such a scientifically based policy would not only require that custodial interrogations be videotaped in their entirety but would also provide guidance on how interrogations should be videotaped to best protect the innocent from the possibility of wrongful conviction. Moreover, we argue in this chapter—again from the standpoint of relevant science—that even under the best of circumstances, evaluations of defendants' videotaped statements obtained during a typical police interrogation conducted in the United States are subject to the same biases that often undermine the quality of judgments of in vivo interactions between people (e.g., the fundamental attribution error; Ross, 1977). Consequently, the ultimate success of the videotaping reform will only be as good as fact finders' decision-making processes. It is not the point of this chapter to disparage the videotaping movement; rather, the hope is to further its success by identifying potential unintended consequences and offering recommendations, sooner as opposed to later, for avoiding them (cf. Lassiter & Dudley, 1991). This chapter briefly reviews some of the research that initially established the existence of what is now known as the camera perspective bias (Lassiter, 2002). It then turns to a more detailed presentation of the most recent findings that provide the strongest evidence to date that policymakers should heed the scientific data to ensure that the videotaping reform advances, rather than impedes, the cause of justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Arguably, it is easier to see behavior (i.e., the confession) than it is to notice the underlying psychological states (i.e., desperation) that drive them. Indeed, perceptual salience is generally theorized to explain the fundamental attribution broadly (e.g., Robinson & McArthur, 1982), an explanation supported by evidence that a videotaped confession is perceived as more genuine when the confessor rather than the interrogator is the focus of the video (e.g., Lassiter et al., 2007). Even so, it is striking that jurors so infrequently mentioned the psychological state of the defendant, particularly because the camera focused equally on the interrogators and the defendant, and at one point, the defendant breaks down and sobs with his head in his hands. ...
Objective:
Because confessions are sometimes unreliable, it is important to understand how jurors evaluate confession evidence. We conducted a content analysis testing an attribution theory model for mock jurors' discussion of coerced confession evidence in determining verdicts.
Hypotheses:
We tested exploratory hypotheses regarding mock jurors' discussion of attributions and elements of the confession. We expected that jurors' prodefense statements, external attributions (attributing the confession to coercion), and uncontrollable attributions (attributing the confession to defendant naivety) would predict more prodefense than proprosecution case judgments. We also expected that being male, politically conservative, and in support of the death penalty would predict proprosecution statements and internal attributions, which in turn would predict guilty verdicts.
Method:
Mock jurors (N = 253, Mage = 47 years; 65% women; 88% White, 10% Black, 1% Hispanic, 1% listed "other") read a murder trial synopsis, watched an actual coerced false confession, completed case judgments, and deliberated in juries of up to 12 members. We videotaped, transcribed, and reliably coded deliberations.
Results:
Most mock jurors (53%) rendered a guilty verdict. Participants made more prodefense than proprosecution statements, more external than internal attributions, and more internal than uncontrollable attributions. Participants infrequently mentioned various elements of the interrogation (police coercion, contamination, promises of leniency, interrogation length) and psychological consequences for the defendant. Proprosecution statements and internal attributions predicted proprosecution case judgments. Women made more prodefense and external attribution statements than men, which in turn predicted diminished guilt. Political conservatives and death penalty proponents made more proprosecution statements and internal attributions than their counterparts, respectively, which in turn predicted greater guilt.
Conclusions:
Some jurors identified coercive elements of a false confession and rendered external attributions for a defendant's false confession (attributing the confession to the coercive interrogation) during deliberation. However, many jurors made internal attributions, attributing a defendant's false confession to his guilt-attributions that predicted juror and jury inclinations to convict an innocent defendant. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... There is also research demonstrating that, in areas other than courtroom questioning, judges can be influenced by external factors and may stray from best practice. For instance, when dealing with the angle of the camera in a suspect interview (Lassiter et al., 2007), the impact of coercion on sentencing decisions (Wallace & Kassin, 2012), disregarding inadmissible evidence (Wistrich et al., 2005), and letting cognitive illusions influence decisions (e.g. anchoring, hindsight bias; Guthrie et al., 2002), it seems that expertise does not protect judges from falling victim to the biases that plague laypeople. ...
Judges are the gatekeepers of evidence in the justice system. Granted that witness testimony is pivotal to the truth-seeking function of the criminal justice system, and that judges sometimes intervene and ask questions in the courtroom to help ensure the testimony is accurate, little is known about judges’ questioning practices. In the current study, we examine the questioning practices of a sample of Canadian judges. A total of 3,140 utterances spoken by 15 different judges across 22 criminal cases (169 witness examinations) were classified as one of 13 utterance types, and assessed as a function of examination type; utterance and response lengths were also calculated. Results showed that, when talking to witnesses directly, most of the questions asked were clarification (37%), followed by facilitators (17%), and closed yes/no (10%); less than 1% of all question types were open-ended. The longest answers were provided in response to open-ended questions. We also found that closed yes/no questions were the most frequently used question types during judge-led lines of questioning (i.e. examinations per curium), as opposed to lawyer-led lines of questioning (i.e. during direct and cross examinations). Implications for the truth-seeking function of the justice system are discussed.
... Finally, by allowing participants to view the confession evidence, the camera perspective can be manipulated. Prior research shows that confessions focused on the interrogator rather than the suspect are perceived as more coercive (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). Consequently, jurors might be more likely to fully discount factually incorrect confessions focused on the interrogator. ...
Several high-profile cases involving wrongful convictions have featured factually incorrect confessions (i.e., confessions that contradicted case facts). The current research investigated the effects of factually incorrect confessions on juror judgments. In Experiment 1, participants read a trial transcript, containing either no confession, a factually correct confession, or a factually incorrect confession after a 1-hour or 10-hour interrogation. Afterwards, participants judged the coerciveness of the confession, guilt of the suspect and named accomplice, and strength of the prosecution’s case. Experiment 2 used confessions with different factual errors and different interrogation lengths. Participants made the same legal judgments. In both experiments, participants rated a factually incorrect confession as more coerced than a factually correct confession. Participants fully discounted factually incorrect confessions when evaluating a defendant’s guilt. However, compared to conditions with no confession, participants perceived a named accomplice as guiltier and the prosecution’s case as stronger when the defendant provided a factually incorrect confession.
... In several studies, mock interrogations were taped from three different camera angles so that the suspect, the interrogator, or both were visible. Consistently, participants who see the equal-focus perspective render more informed attributions of voluntariness and guilt, making them better fact finders (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;Lassiter, Geers, Handley, Weiland, & Munhall, 2002). ...
In recent years, DNA exoneration cases have shed light on the problem of false confessions and the wrongful convictions that result. Drawing on basic psychological principles and methods, an extensive body of research has focused on the psychology of confessions. This article describes the processes of interrogation by which police assess whether a suspect is lying or telling the truth and the techniques used to elicit confessions from those deemed deceptive. The problem of false confessions emphasizes personal and situational factors that put innocent people at risk in the interrogation room. Turning from the causes of false confessions to their consequences, research shows that confession evidence can bias juries, judges, lay witnesses, and forensic examiners. Finally, empirically based proposals for the reform of policy and practice include a call for the mandatory video recording of interrogations, blind testing in forensic crime labs, and use of confession experts in court.
... Self-report methods have also been used to examine correlations between various personal suspect characteristics-such as interrogative compliance, suggestibility, and mental illness-and the tendency to confess or resist confession (e.g., Gudjonsson, Sigurdsson, & Sigfusdottir, 2009;Redlich, Summers, & Hoover, 2010). Last but not least, experimental paradigms have been developed for causal hypothesis testing-to assess how accurately investigators make preinterrogation judgments of truth and deception (Hartwig, Granhag, Strömwall, & Vrij, 2005;Kassin & Fong, 1999;Vrij, Mann, & Fisher, 2006; for reviews, see Chapter 2, this volume); to determine the effects of various interrogation tactics on the probability of confession (e.g., Kassin & Kiechel, 1996;Nash & Wade, 2009;Russano, Meissner, Narchet, & Kassin, 2005); and to assess the impact of confession evidence on juries (e.g., Kassin & Sukel, 1997;Lassiter, Geers, Handley, Weiland, & Munhall, 2002), judges (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;Wallace & Kassin, 2009), and eyewitnesses (Hasel & Kassin, 2009). ...
... Naturally, video gives the best review opportunities here, because both visible and audible behaviors are recorded -on the part of the suspect as well as the interrogators. Judges and the other process participants may decide to view the interrogation on video to determine whether unlawful techniques were employed, or techniques that put undue pressure on the accused, and to check whether the suspect might have falsely confessed as a result (Lassiter et al., 2007). ...
As a result of technological developments, digital recording of police interrogations has become a straightforward option in many legal systems. Videos of interrogations can now be used during criminal proceedings, instead of or in addition to written reports. Text, image and sound have different effects in the criminal justice system. This article first discusses the existing research into these effects. A study is presented in which written reports of 55 real-life Dutch police interrogations of suspects are compared to the audio and video recordings. Interrogations appear to be rigorously summarized and edited in the written reports, which may lead to biased or misinformed judgments. Risks for fact-finding are discussed and ways of enabling a better review of police interrogations are examined.
... One study showed that judges fell prey to the anchoring and adjustment heuristic during sentencing; they anchored their sentences on a given sentencing demand even if the demand came from an irrelevant source, if they were informed that the demand was randomly generated, or if they randomly generated the demand themselves by rolling dice (Englich, Mussweiler, & Strack, 2006). Another study found that expertise failed to protect judges against the cameraperspective effect when evaluating videotaped confessions (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). These findings call into question the extent to which expertise may immunize judges against the effects of gendered biases in their decision-making. ...
Although the influence of gender ideology on lay decision-making has been established, it is not known to what extent expertise may mitigate gendered biases and improve decision-making quality. In a set of controlled experiments, trial court judges and laypeople evaluated a hypothetical child custody case and a hypothetical employment discrimination case. The role of expertise was tested in two ways: by comparing judges’ and laypeople’s decision-making and by examining relative differences in expertise among judges. Judges were no less influenced by litigant gender and by their own gender ideology than the lay sample. Judges with greater subject-matter expertise were also no less influenced by gender ideology than other judges. In some cases, expertise was associated with greater, not less, bias. The results of this study suggest that expertise does not attenuate gendered biases in legal decision-making.
... By directing visual attention onto the accused, the camera can thus lead one to underestimate the pressure exerted in the background. Additional studies have confirmed that mock jurors and judges are more attuned to the situational factors that elicit confessions when the interrogator is also on camera (Lassiter et al., 2002;Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). ...
Recent advances in DNA technology have shined a spotlight on thousands of innocent people wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit—many of whom had been induced to confess. The scientific study of false confessions, which helps to explain this phenomenon, has proved highly paradoxical. On the one hand, it is rooted in reliable core principles of psychology (e.g., research on reinforcement and decision-making, obedience to authority, and confirmation biases). On the other hand, false confessions are highly counterintuitive if not inconceivable to most people (e.g., as seen in actual trial outcomes as well as studies of jury decision making). This article describes both the psychology underlying false confessions and the psychology that predicts the counterintuitive nature of this same phenomenon. It then notes that precisely because they are so counterintuitive, false confessions are often “invisible,” resulting in a form of inattentional blindness, and are slow to change in the face of contradiction, illustrating belief perseverance. This article concludes by suggesting ways in which psychologists can help to prevent future miscarriages of justice by advocating for reforms to policy and practice and helping to raise public awareness.
... Increased visual attention to the suspect introduced by the camera perspective persisted despite emphasizing participants' accountability for their judgment (Lassiter, Munhall, Geers, Weiland, & Handley, 2001), explicit instructions to focus on the content of the confession , and when given broad cautions about the concept of camera perspective bias . Moreover professional training and expertise did not mitigate the impact of camera perspective and disproportionate visual attention, as these biases emerged even among judges (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). However, interventions that provided detailed information explaining the camera perspective bias, addressing how visual factors can affect culpability judgments, proved to be effective. ...
Despite universal aspirations to hold all people equal before the law and guarantee a fair trial to defendants regardless of their race, religion, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation, disparity continues to pervade the justice system. People who belong to some social groups are particularly likely to receive harsher legal outcomes than others. The justice system attempts to remedy such inter-group bias by collecting and considering evidence that speaks to the ‘objective’ truth of an event, some of the most potent forms of which include pictorial images and video footage. While such visual evidence is itself considered objective, it can perhaps counter-intuitively foster bias in court. We review research and provide original data asserting that bias in legal judgment persists despite the inclusion of visual evidence partly because decision-makers’ perceptions of visual evidence may be swayed by subjective factors. Specifically, social group membership engenders bias in verdicts and punishment decisions because it directs the way that people visually attend to evidence. To account more fully for variability in legal decisions, we argue that social group membership must be investigated concurrently with its impact on the encoding and processing of visual information. This chapter synthesizes contemporary research on visual attention and contextualizes it within the evaluation of legal evidence. We draw upon our own work and that of others’ who have used eye-tracking and other techniques to measure or manipulate overt visual attention to evidence. We argue that the consideration of visual attention can assist in predicting when and how social group membership biases legal decisionmaking, and we speculate about the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible. Finally, we propose ways in which visual attention can be utilized to mitigate biases in legal decision-making.
... 84 Presented with a more balanced perspective, mock jurors and judges make more informed judgments of voluntariness and guilt. 85,86 ...
As illustrated by numerous cases in recent years, DNA exonerations of innocent individuals have cast a spotlight on the counterintuitive problem of false confessions. Studying the underlying psychology scientists have found that (1) innocent people are often targeted for interrogation because police make erroneous but confident judgments of deception; (2) certain interrogation techniques—namely, lengthy sessions, presentations of false evidence, and minimization themes that imply leniency—increase the risk that innocent people will confess; (3) certain individuals are particularly vulnerable to influence—notably, those with mental health problems or intellectual impairments, which render them overly compliant or suggestible, and children and adolescents, who exhibit ‘immaturity of judgment’; (4) confession evidence is highly persuasive in court as a matter of common sense, increasing perceptions of guilt, even among judges and juries who see the confession as coerced, and even at times when the confession is contradicted by exculpatory information; (5) Miranda rights to silence and to counsel are not sufficiently protective, so proposals for reform have centered on the mandatory recording of interrogations, from start to finish, and a shift toward using investigative interviewing—a less confrontational, less deceptive means of questioning suspects. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1439. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1439
This article is categorized under: Psychology > Reasoning and Decision Making
... While a transcript fully communicates the verbal text of a police-suspect interaction, it does not depict potentially important aspects of the suspect (e.g., his or her physical condition, appearance, attire, voice, and demeanor; whether he or she is seated in a corner or handcuffed) or the police officers (e.g., their number, size, and proximity to the suspect; whether they are uniformed or in plain clothes; whether weapons are visible; whether they raise their voices). In this regard, extensive research indicates that fact finders render more balanced and accurate judgments from "equal focus" video recordings that show both the suspect and police rather than one or the other (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;Lassiter, Geers, Handley, Weiland, & Munhall, 2002). ...
A 2-phased experiment assessed the accuracy and completeness of police reports on mock interrogations and their effects on people's perceptions. In Phase 1, 16 experienced officers investigated a mock crime scene, interrogated 2 innocent suspects-1 described by the experimenter as more suspicious than the other-and filed an incident report. All 32 sessions were covertly recorded; the recordings were later used to assess the reports. In Phase 2, 96 lay participants were presented with a brief summary of the case and then either read 1 police report, read 1 verbatim interrogation transcript, or listened to an audiotape of a session. Results showed that (a) Police and suspects diverged in their perceptions of the interrogations; (b) Police committed frequent errors of omission in their reports, understating their use of confrontation, maximization, leniency, and false evidence; and (c) Phase 2 participants who read a police report, compared to those who read a verbatim transcript, perceived the process as less pressure-filled and were more likely to misjudge suspects as guilty. These findings are limited by the brevity and low-stakes nature of the task and by the fact that no significant effects were obtained for our suspicion manipulation, suggesting a need for more research. Limitations notwithstanding, this study adds to a growing empirical literature indicating the need for a requirement that all suspect interrogations be electronically recorded. To provide a more objective and accurate account of what transpired, this study also suggests the benefit of producing verbatim transcripts. (PsycINFO Database Record
... Jurors are more likely to consider situational factors in their inferences of voluntariness and their verdicts when they watch a videotaped confession that contains both the interrogator and the suspect in the scene ( Lassiter & Geers, 2004;Lassiter, Geers, Handley, Weiland, & Munhall, 2002;Lassiter, Geers, Munhall, Handley, & Beers, 2001). Even experienced legal professionals and law enforcement offers fall prey to the camera-perspective bias ( Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). The bias appears to be perceptually based ( Ratcliff, Lassiter, Schmidt, & Snyder, 2006), with new eye-tracking data confirming that this effect of camera view is in part due to increased visual attention to the interrogator ( Ware, Lassiter, Patterson, & Ransom, 2008). ...
1Role of Social and Behavioral Science in the Law2(UN)Reliability of Eyewitness Identifications3Interrogations and Confessions4Jury Selection5Pretrial Publicity6Expert Evidence7Summary
... By directing visual attention toward the accused, the camera can thus lead jurors to underestimate the amount of pressure actually exerted by the "hidden" detective (Lassiter & Irvine, 1986; for a review, see Lassiter, Geers, Munhall, Handley, & Beers, 2001). Under these more balanced circumstances, juries-and judgesmake more informed attributions of voluntariness and guilt when they see not only the final confession but the conditions under which it was elicited (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;Lassiter, Geers, Handley, Weiland, & Munhall, 2002). ...
Inspired by DNA exoneration cases and other wrongful convictions of innocent people who had confessed to crimes they did not commit, and drawing from basic principles of social perception and social influence, a vast body of research has focused on the social psychology of confessions. In particular, this article describes laboratory and field studies on the “Milgramesque” processes of police interviewing an interrogation, the methods by which innocent people are judged deceptive and induced into confession, and the rippling effects of these confessions on judges, juries, lay and expert witnesses, and the truth-seeking process itself. This article concludes with a discussion of social and policy implications—including a call for the mandatory video recording of entire interrogations, blind testing in forensic science labs, and the admissibility of confession experts in court.
... To further extend the external validity of this line of research, Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, and Elek (2007) presented practicing judges and police interrogators with a simulated sexual assault interrogation. The interrogation, shown in one of three formats (a suspect, detective, or equal-focus video format), produced the same linear trend reported in previous studies. ...
... ratings used in previous camera perspective research Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007) were administered (see Appendix A). ...
... By default, the camera is usually focused on the suspect, but observers who watch suspect-focused videos, as opposed to videos focused on the interrogator or on both individuals equally, perceive the confession as more voluntary and the suspect as more likely guilty . This bias has been replicated across multiple participant samples and situations (Landström, Roos af Hjelmsäter, & Granhag, 2007;Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;Lassiter, Slaw, Briggs, & Scanlan, 1992;Lassiter, Ware, Ratcliff, & Irvin, 2009), and it is not easily alleviated (Lassiter, Beers, et al., 2002;Lassiter, Munhall, Geers, Weiland, & Handley, 2001). Lassiter and colleagues have concluded that two factors contribute to the camera perspective bias (Ware, Lassiter, Patterson, & Ransom, 2008). ...
Criminal suspects who confess during interrogations sometimes retract their confessions and go to trial. Jurors must then evaluate the voluntariness and authenticity of the confession and determine guilt. Previous research indicates that focusing the camera on the detective and defendant equally (rather than on the defendant alone) while recording the interrogation protects defendants from a salience bias produced by the camera perspective. We demonstrated that, even with an equal-focus video, a salience bias can occur if jurors conceptualize a defendant as a member of a minority group and therefore see the defendant as distinctive. In two experiments, mock jurors viewed an equal-focus confession video embedded within a murder trial. The defendant's physical appearance remained constant; however, when jurors believed he was a minority rather than a majority group member, they directed more visual attention toward him, rated his confession as more voluntary, authentic, and incriminating, and considered him more likely guilty. Contrary to our prediction, the defendant's minority status did not interact with his apparent motive (Experiment 1). However, the detective's use of a false evidence ploy during interrogation led jurors to evaluate the defendant less negatively on most measures (Experiment 2), although verdicts were unaffected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
... Thus, the use of out-of-court testimonies introduces an additional source of potential extralegal influence and this camera perspective bias may occur in evaluations of both children's and adults' testimonies. Furthermore, research has shown that the camera perspective bias is prominent in real-life high stake situations (Landstr€ om, Roos af Hjelms€ ater, & Granhag, 2007), and that legal professionals such as police officers and judges are not immune to the bias (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). ...
PurposeTwo experiments were conducted to examine the effects of (1) child victims’ emotional expression during testimony and (2) the camera perspective used to record the testimony, on judgements of credibility. Methods
Law students (N = 155 in Experiment 1; N = 86 in Experiment 2) watched a child harassment complainant provide a statement in an emotional or neutral manner, presented using different camera perspectives: balanced focus (i.e., a shot portraying an equal focus on the child complainant and the interviewer) versus picture-in-picture (PiP; i.e., a shot portraying only the child with an inset window depicting both the child and the interviewer in the corner of the screen) in Experiment 1 and PiP versus child focus (i.e., a shot depicting only the child) in Experiment 2. ResultsAlthough no effect was found for camera perspective, the results provide support for an emotional victim effect (EVE); the child was perceived as more credible and truthful when communicating the statement in an emotional (vs. neutral) manner. Moreover, the results provide corroborating evidence for the assumption that the EVE rests on both cognitive (expectancy confirmation) and affective (compassion) mechanisms. Conclusions
These findings extend previous research by showing that the EVE and its underlying mechanisms apply to judgements of child complainants in the context of non-sexual crimes and appear to be robust against variations of camera perspectives. Legal implications are discussed.
... Providing video evidence allows the juror an opportunity to use various cues aside from the written word that will help determine if a confession is coerced, and perhaps invalid. Previously , research has been completed using video evidence of interrogations, yet the focus of these studies has been primarily on camera perspective (Lassiter, Dia- mond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2006). Rather than focusing on camera biases, we examined the perceptions of mock jurors exposed to videotaped confessions depicting minimization techniques with or without manipulation of perceived consequences and maximization techniques with or without manipulation of perceived consequences (Horgan et al., 2011 ). ...
Coercive interrogation techniques, including minimization and maximization, can contribute to false confessions and wrongful convictions. Although research has shown that minimization and maximization techniques that influence the perceived consequences of confessing can impact a suspect's decision to confess, such tech-niques have not been examined from a juror's perspective. Using videos of mock interrogations and subsequent confessions, we examined the influence of technique type (maximization with or without manipulation of perceived consequences vs. minimization with or without manipulation of perceived consequences) on under-graduate students' perceptions of interrogation styles (N = 92). Participants evalu-ated maximization techniques as more coercive than minimization techniques, and were more confident in their verdicts when they perceived the suspect as guilty. Participants who judged the suspect as not guilty were significantly more likely to find the confession coerced than those who perceived the suspect guilty. As well, participants who perceived the suspect guilty were more likely to judge the confes-sion as being coerced when exposed to maximization techniques than when exposed to minimization techniques. Such results support a need to understand, and further examine, the limitations of coercive interrogation techniques and to explore the use of non-coercive techniques.
... The bias has also been shown to occur across various types of crime (Lassiter et al., 1992), in the context of realistic trial simulations , and with samples of college students and community members from disparate backgrounds (Lassiter, Beers et al., 2002). Finally, relevant expertise does not mitigate the bias as it has been shown recently to affect the evaluations of highly experienced trial judges and police interrogators (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007). 1 ...
Objective. Numerous previous experiments have established the existence of a camera perspective bias in evaluations of videotaped interrogations/confessions: videotapes that make the suspect more visually conspicuous than the interrogator(s) by virtue of focusing the camera on the suspect yield assessments of voluntariness and judgments of guilt that are greater than those found when alternative presentation formats are used. One limitation of this body of research is that all the interrogations/confessions used to date were simulations; therefore, no evidence currently demonstrates that the camera perspective bias importantly generalizes to authentic videotapes recorded by police and depicting actual suspects and interrogators. Two experiments addressed this issue.
Methods. Experiment 1 compared judgments of voluntariness based on viewing two authentic videotaped confessions – one recorded with the camera focused on the suspect, the other with the camera focused equally on the suspect and interrogator – with those based on listening only to the audio or reading only a transcript. Experiment 2 compared judgments of voluntariness and guilt of an originally equal‐focus videotaped confession that was edited to produce suspect‐focus and interrogator‐focus versions.
Results. In Experiment 1, participants judged the videotape version of the confession to be more voluntary than either the audio only or transcript versions, but only for the suspect‐focus videotape. In Experiment 2, participants viewing the suspect‐focus version of the confession (relative to the interrogator‐focus version) judged it to be more voluntary and the suspect more likely to be guilty.
Conclusion. The present research further strengthens the policy implications of the literature on camera perspective bias by providing evidence that the bias manifests with authentic interrogations/confessions as well as with simulations.
... A third way in which a delay in the presentation of information might affect an alternative's probability of being chosen is by making the alternative as a whole more salient relative to a "static" competitor for which no additional information becomes available at the final choice stage. Prior work suggests that greater visual salience of an object or individual can result in a more favorable evaluation of the latter (Lassiter et al. 2002(Lassiter et al. , 2007Pryor and Kriss 1977;Taylor et al. 1979). For instance, it has been shown that observers of a dyadic conversation form more favorable impressions of the more salient conversationalist and perceive the latter to be more likeable (Taylor et al. 1979). ...
Delaying the presentation of some favorable information about an alternative (e. g., a product, service, brand, store, or cause) until after consumers have completed their pre-choice screening can increase that alternative's choice share. While such a delay reduces the alternative's chance of surviving the screening, it can actually increase its probability of ultimately being chosen. Evidence from five experiments demonstrates this preference-enhancing effect of the delayed presentation of favorable information, and it illustrates the underlying preference dynamics across decision stages associated with such a delay. The findings also indicate that this preference-enhancing effect is driven by a combination of two mental mechanisms-a shift in the decision weights of attribute dimensions (rendering dimensions on which a delay occurs more influential across all alternatives) and an overall preference boost for the alternative about which information is delayed.
... Consistent with this interpretation, visual attention has recently been shown to be a mediator of the camera perspective bias (Ware, Lassiter, Patterson, & Ransom, 2008). Given this result and other evidence of its perceptual nature Ratcliff, Lassiter, Schmidt, & Snyder, 2006), it is not surprising that the bias is undiminished by observers' legal expertise, degree of complex thinking, sense of heightened accountability, or even by forewarning them of the bias (Lassiter, Beers, et al., 2002;Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;Lassiter et al., 2005;Lassiter, Munhall, Geers, Weiland, & Handley, 2001;Lassiter, Slaw, Briggs, & Scanlan, 1992). ...
Evaluations of videotaped criminal confessions can be influenced by the camera perspective taken during recording. Interrogations and confessions recorded with the camera directing observers' visual attention onto the suspect lead to biased judgments of the suspect. Although a camera perspective that directs visual attention onto the suspect and interrogator equally appears to promote unbiased judgments, investigations to date have relied on videotapes that depict only Caucasian suspects and interrogators. We examined the possibility that even equal-focus videotapes may become problematic when the suspect is a minority (e.g., Chinese American or African American) and the interrogator is Caucasian. That is, to the extent that Caucasian observers are inclined to direct more of their attention onto minorities, an effect documented previously, we expected biased judgments of the suspect to also occur in equal-focus videotapes. Three experiments provided evidence of this racial salience bias. Implications are discussed, including a practical way of avoiding the bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Although the scientific community recommends that videotaped recordings of custodial interrogations utilize an equal-focus format to avoid biasing confession-related judgments of judges and jurors (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007;see Lassiter, Ware, Lindberg, & Ratcliff, 2010), few jurisdictions have adopted this procedure (e.g., see NACDL, 2004). Even under strict guidelines designed to ensure that suspect interviews are recorded in an equal-focus format, suspect-focus archival footage would likely still exist and could continue to appear as evidence in court. ...
Purpose. Videotaped confession evidence elicits harsher evaluations against a defendant if initially recorded with the camera focused primarily on the suspect, compared with other presentation formats. Unfortunately, most videotaped confession evidence employs this biasing suspect-focus camera perspective format, leaving defendants with no recourse. The present study examined the utility of judicial instructions in mitigating the effects of the camera perspective bias on individual juror verdicts.
Methods. Through random assignment, 156 mock jurors did or did not receive explicit instructions to correct for the camera perspective bias prior to viewing a video recording of an authentic true or false confession.
Results. As expected, mock jurors who received instructions to correct for the camera perspective bias reported more lenient judgments of confessor guilt after viewing a suspect-focus confession recording compared to those who did not receive such instructions. However, this relative leniency emerged only in response to false, and not true, confessions.
Conclusions. Results demonstrated that judicial instructions used in the present research mitigated the effect of camera perspective on mock-juror judgments of suspect guilt.
... There has been almost no research on judges, probably because of the difficulty of gaining access to this important group. However, one recent study exposed judges to an interrogation viewed from different camera angles (Lassiter et al. 2007). Findings revealed that judges showed the same perceptual bias as mock jurors: a camera perspective showing only the suspect led to higher ratings of guilt and voluntariness than did a neutral " equal-focus " camera perspective showing both the suspect and the interrogator (Lassiter & Geers 2004). ...
Although there has been a rapid expansion in research on police interrogations and false confessions, little is known about the beliefs of potential jurors as to these issues. In collaboration with a trial research firm, we recruited 461 jury-eligible men and women who matched the demographic characteristics of jury pools in several states. Surrogate jurors responded to questions and statements in five areas: likely rates of false confessions for different crimes, the ability to discern true from false confessions, beliefs about false confessions, beliefs about permissible interrogation tactics, and beliefs about expert testimony on police interrogations. Results indicated that jurors believed that police interrogators are better than ordinary people at identifying lies and that this ability improves with experience. Jurors believed that they would be able to differentiate a true confession from a false confession by watching a videotape, but were less confident about making such a differentiation from an audio recording. A large majority of the sample reported that it would be helpful to hear expert testimony about interrogation techniques and reasons why a defendant might falsely confess to a crime. There were no significant gender differences. Compared to whites, nonwhite jurors had significantly less confidence in the abilities of the police and gave significantly higher estimates of false confession rates. Results are discussed in light of prior research and implications for jury decision making and expert testimony.
... Under these more balanced circumstances, juries make more informed attributions of voluntariness and guilt when they see not only the final confession but also the conditions under which it was elicited (Lassiter et al. 2002). Interestingly, experienced trial judges are similarly influenced by this variation in camera perspective (Lassiter et al. 2007). ...
Despite the potency of confession evidence in criminal law, recent DNA exonerations indicate that false confessions are a contributing factor in numerous wrongful convictions. After distinguishing between voluntary, compliant, and internalized false confessions, this article reviews research implicating a sequence of three processes responsible for false confessions and the adverse consequences of these confessions. First, police often target innocent people for interrogation because of erroneous judgments of truth and deception made during preinterrogation interviews. Second, innocent people are sometimes induced to confess as a function of certain police interrogation tactics, dispositional suspect vulnerabilities, and naive mental state that accompanies innocence. Third, people cannot readily distinguish between true and false confessions and often fail to discount those confessions they perceive to be coerced. At present, researchers are seeking ways to improve the accuracy of confession evidence and its evaluation in the courtroom.
Objective: Over the past 4 decades, discrepant research findings have emerged in the juror–confession literature, prompting the need for a systematic review and meta-analysis that assesses the effect of confession evidence (coerced or noncoerced) on conviction rates and the efficacy of trial safeguards. Hypotheses: We did not predict any directional hypotheses. Some studies show increased convictions when a confession is present (vs. not), regardless of whether that confession was coerced; other studies demonstrate that jurors are able to discount coerced confessions. Studies have also demonstrated sensitivity effects (safeguards aided jurors in making appropriate decisions), skepticism effects (safeguards led jurors to indiscriminately disregard confession evidence), or null effects with regard to expert testimony and jury instructions. Method: We identified 83 independent samples (N = 24,860) that met our meta-analytic inclusion criteria. Using extracted Hedges’ g effect sizes, we conducted both network meta-analysis and metaregression to address key research questions. Results: Coerced and noncoerced confessions (vs. no confession) increased convictions (network gs = 0.34 and 0.70, respectively), yet coerced (vs. noncoerced) confessions reduced convictions (network g = −0.36). When jury instructions were employed (vs. not), convictions in coerced confession cases were reduced (this difference did not emerge for noncoerced confessions; a sensitivity effect). Expert testimony, however, reduced conviction likelihood regardless of whether a confession was coerced (a skepticism effect). Conclusion: Confession evidence is persuasive, and although jurors appear to recognize the detrimental effect of coercive interrogation methods on confession reliability, they do not fully discount unreliable confessions. Educational safeguards are therefore needed, but more research is encouraged to identify the most effective forms of jury instructions and expert testimony. One potential reform could be in the interrogation room itself, as science-based interviewing approaches could provide jurors with more reliable defendant statement evidence that assists them in reaching appropriate verdict decisions.
Judges and jurists frequently read police-recorded video as arhetorical. It is not. Footage recorded from the perspective of an officer favors police. Drawing on both Burke’s theory of identification and film studies, I consider how footage filmed from an officer’s perspective functions as a nonverbal constitutive rhetoric. In an analysis of Harris v. Scott (2007), I demonstrate how police-recorded video encourages viewers to dissolve the space between themselves and the police, inviting audiences to characterize both police and themselves as passive, impartial, and objective viewers of an recorded event. When successful as constitutive rhetoric, footage from police-recorded video makes jurors and judges more suspectable to arguments that characterize police as passive observers in an event.
The arrest and subsequent death of George Floyd are often cited as pivotal events in the evolution of police-citizen relationships. They were also the pinnacle of the “new visibility of policing” in that they were filmed by multiple cameras, and video recordings of the arrest of George Floyd played a central role in the trial of the police officer who killed Floyd. Although empirical work in other fields has repeatedly shown that how information is conveyed (the container) influences our perceptions and opinions sometimes as much as the information itself (the content), criminologists have largely neglected the effect of cognitive biases on perceptions of the police. The present study investigates both camera perspective and audio biases by reporting the results of three related viewings of controversial police interventions involving the use of force, filmed from the perspectives of a body-worn camera, a surveillance camera, and a cellphone. Results inconsistently support the existence of both biases but still point toward a concerning conclusion: technical features of the videos presented are associated with significantly different opinions. Implications for the public release of video footage are discussed.
In diesem Kapitel wird dargelegt, wie Personen zu einem Eindruck und einer Beurteilung einer anderen Person kommen. Dabei wird auf die Rolle von äußerlich beobachtbaren Merkmalen des zu Beurteilenden und des Verhaltens einer Person eingegangen. Fehleinschätzungen resultieren häufig daraus, dass bei der Beurteilung von Verhalten situative Gegebenheiten zu wenig berücksichtigt und damit letztendlich dispositionale Faktoren überschätzt werden. Es wird zudem auf Merkmale der Situation bei der Eindrucksbildung eingegangen. Je nach Blickwinkel und Auffälligkeit können Beurteilungen ein und desselben Verhaltens sehr unterschiedlich ausfallen. Schließlich werden auch Merkmale des Beurteilers dargelegt, die einen Einfluss auf die Eindrucksbildung ausüben. Auch aufgrund dieser Merkmale ist die Beurteilung anderer Personen meist nicht das, was wir „objektiv“ nennen würden. Aus diesem Grund ist es sinnvoll, verzerrende Mechanismen zu kennen und sie bei weitreichenden Beurteilungen zu vermindern.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that people are to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” It further requires that warrants to perform such searches and seizures are based on probable cause with specific descriptions of what will be searched or seized. Supreme Court case law has contextualized this standard and applied a number of exceptions. As is often the case in the law, those standards and exceptions have psychological foundations and implications. The current chapter first examines the historical background of the Fourth Amendment. That history is replete with examples of the judiciary making psychological assumptions about people’s behavior. Next, we examine modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence focusing on when a search or seizure triggers Fourth Amendment protections. In particular, we address the use of surveillance and technology (including trained canines) that seem to push the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment’s original intent. Finally, we address the issue of consenting to a search request because a search will not violate the Fourth Amendment if there is a valid consent. We detail empirical research addressing the psychological mechanisms underlying the validity and voluntariness of such consents.
Bu derlemede, insanların işlemedikleri suçları çeşitli nedenlerle kabul etmesine
karşılık gelen sahte itiraf olgusu incelenmektedir. Kesin oranları tam olarak bilinmemekle
birlikte, sahte itirafların hem sanılandan hem de kanıtlanmış sahte itiraf vakalarının
gösterdiğinden daha yaygın oldukları tahmin edilmektedir. Güncel veriler sahte itirafların,
sonradan beraat kararı verilen haksız mahkumiyetlerle sonuçlanmış davaların yaklaşık dörtte
birinde rol oynadığını ve dolayısıyla haksız mahkumiyetlerin önemli nedenleri arasında yer
aldığını göstermektedir. Çalışmada, sahte itiraf alanyazını problemin psikolojik boyutunu
merkeze alan bir yaklaşımla ve çeşitli yönleriyle ele alınmıştır. İlk olarak, sahte itirafların
kuramsal çerçevesine ilişkin bilgi ve tartışmalar gözden geçirilmiştir. İkinci olarak, bu
olgunun varlığını ve yaygınlığını ortaya koyan veriler gözden geçirilmiş ve tartışılmıştır.
Üçüncü olarak, insanları sahte itirafta bulunmaya sevk eden bazı kişiler arası farklılıklar ile
çeşitli çevresel risk etmenleri ele alınmıştır. Son olarak, sahte itirafları önleme ve/veya
azaltmaya yönelik tedbirler, politika önerileri ve reform çağrıları gözden geçirilmiştir.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This paper reviews the false confession phenomenon, which refers to innocent
suspects' detailed admissions to crimes they did not commit. The exact incidence rate of false
confessions in the criminal justice system is not known and is estimated to be far more than
what common sense and documented false confession cases so far would tell. Recent
evidence showed that false confessions play a causal role in about one fourth of all
exonerations, indicating that they are among the leading causes of wrongful convictions of
innocent suspects. In this study, the false confession literature was reviewed from various
aspects, with a particular focus on psychological dimensions of the problem. Specifically,
first, the conceptual framework of false confessions was described. Second, the data on the
presence and prevalence of false confessions were overviewed and discussed. Third, a number
of individual differences and situational risk factors that lead innocent people to confess to
crimes they did not commit were examined. Finally, measures, policy recommendations and
reform calls with regards to preventing and/or reducing false confessions were overviewed.
Rosa Squillacote and Leonard Feldman contend that police abuse calls on us to rethink traditionally institutional approaches to understanding accountability. Instead, they argue that courts and legislatures should be decentered by an approach that (a) recovers the potential for democratic accountability within administrative agencies and (b) emphasizes practices of agonistic surveillance by nonstate actors. Engaging the literature in political theory and drawing on examples from the United States, they examine specific institutional mechanisms and agonistic surveillance practices, such as body cameras and Cop Watch. By examining the ways in which administrative agencies are, or can be, accountable to the people—and focusing on the police as administrative agents—they find that we uncover new possibilities for police reform.
This paper reviews the false confession phenomenon, which refers to innocent
suspects' detailed admissions to crimes they did not commit. The exact incidence rate of false
confessions in the criminal justice system is not known and is estimated to be far more than
what common sense and documented false confession cases so far would tell. Recent
evidence showed that false confessions play a causal role in about one fourth of all
exonerations, indicating that they are among the leading causes of wrongful convictions of
innocent suspects. In this study, the false confession literature was reviewed from various
aspects, with a particular focus on psychological dimensions of the problem. Specifically,
first, the conceptual framework of false confessions was described. Second, the data on the
presence and prevalence of false confessions were overviewed and discussed. Third, a number
of individual differences and situational risk factors that lead innocent people to confess to
crimes they did not commit were examined. Finally, measures, policy recommendations and
reform calls with regards to preventing and/or reducing false confessions were overviewed.
Este artigo defende a necessidade de promover políticas públicas baseadas em evidências científicas, a partir de uma análise das relações entre políticas públicas jurídicas e conhecimento científico, com foco na psicologia cognitiva. Partimos do reconhecimento de que propostas desse tipo tendem a enfrentar dificuldades em uma época de " pós-verdade " , quando as evidências empíricas fornecem argumentos de alcance limitado nos casos quando conduzem a alternativas contrapostas às intuições dominantes no senso comum. Alguns fatos recentes, especialmente a falência generalizada do sistema prisional brasileiro, indicam que, no Brasil, os modelos de instituições judiciais, de processos de educação e de mecanismos de seleção de juízes podem ser parte o problema, constituindo estratégias muito limitadas na promoção de um exercício legítimo da aplicação do direito. Neste ensaio, defendemos que tais estratégias não levam em conta o fato de que as mais recentes pesquisas empíricas de Psicologia Cognitiva indicam que vieses cognitivos são inerentes à tomada de decisão humana, inclusive dos magistrados mais preparados e experientes. Sustentamos que o devido conhecimento dos vieses cognitivos envolvidos nos processos decisórios dos aplicadores do direito permite avaliar com mais precisão a utilidade das mencionadas estratégias políticas e desenvolver abordagens inovadoras capazes de enfrentar os pontos cegos dos repertórios tradicionais da filosofia do Direito e da hermenêutica jurídica. Nesse senti-do, são discutidos os achados de estudos empíricos sobre a Psicologia da Punição e argumenta-se que o conhecimento sobre como são tomadas as decisões na esfera penal pode não apenas mitigar o risco de decisões injustas, mas também pode abrir espaço para que as políticas públicas ligadas à área jurídica (como a política prisional) sejam estabelecidas com base na análise científica de dados empíricos.
Contradicting the commonsense belief that “I'd never confess to a crime I did not commit”, false confessions are a contributing factor in roughly one quarter of all post-conviction DNA exonerations. Voluntary, compliant, and internalized false confessions are distinguished and a sequence of three processes is articulated as responsible for these confessions and the adverse legal consequences that follow. First, police often target innocent people for interrogation on the basis of confident but erroneous judgments of truth and deception made in a preinterrogation interview. Second, innocent people sometimes confess during interrogation as a result of certain dispositional vulnerabilities (such as compliant and suggestible personalities, mental illness and retardation, adolescence, and the phenomenology of innocence) and/or the use of certain coercive tactics (prolonged isolation, the false evidence ploy, and minimization). Third, people cannot accurately distinguish between true and false confessions, and jurors fail to discount even those confessions they see as coerced. As a matter of policy, it is suggested that police should videotape entire interrogations using a neutral, “equal focus” camera perspective and that psychological experts can help to educate judges and juries about the various risk factors.
Juveniles possess less maturity, intelligence, and competence than adults, heightening their vulnerability in the justice system. For this reason, states try juveniles in separate courts and use different sentencing standards than for adults. Yet, when police bring kids in for questioning, they use the same interrogation tactics they use for adults, including trickery, deception, and lying to elicit confessions or to produce incriminating evidence against the defendants. In Kids, Cops, and Confessions, Barry Feld offers the first report of what actually happens when police question juveniles. Drawing on remarkable data, Feld analyzes interrogation tapes and transcripts, police reports, juvenile court filings and sentences, and probation and sentencing reports, describing in rich detail what actually happens in the interrogation room. Contrasting routine interrogation and false confessions enables police, lawyers, and judges to identify interrogations that require enhanced scrutiny, to adopt policies to protect citizens, and to assure reliability and integrity of the justice system. Feld has produced an invaluable look at how the justice system really works.
Prior research demonstrates that observers rate videotaped confessions as more voluntary if the camera focuses on the suspect rather than on the interrogator or on both individuals. The present study extends this finding by examining whether the amount of detail within the content of a confession interacts with camera perspective to influence jurors' assessments. Mock jurors viewed a videotaped confession embedded within a murder trial that contained either a high or low amount of detail about the crime. The confession was recorded with the camera focused either on the defendant, on the defendant and detective equally, or on the detective. As predicted, the amount of detail had no effect when the camera focused either on the detective or on both individuals equally. However, in the defendant-focused condition, a high rather than low detail confession led jurors to conclude that the defendant had a better memory for the crime, to rate his confession as more authentic and incriminating, and to view him as more likely guilty.
Crime suspects in the USA are typically questioned in a two-step process aimed, first, at behavioural lie detection during a pre-interrogation interview, followed by the elicitation of a confession during the interrogation itself (in Great Britain, the practice of investigative interviewing does not make this sharp distinction). Research conducted on the first step shows that police investigators often target innocent people for interrogation because of erroneous but confident judgments of deception. Research on the second step shows that innocent people are sometimes induced to confess to crimes they did not commit as a function of certain dispositional vulnerabilities or the use of overly persuasive interrogation tactics. Citing recent studies, this paper proposes that laboratory paradigms be used to help build more diagnostic models of interrogation. Substantively, we suggest that the British PEACE approach to investigative interviewing may provide a potentially effective alternative to the classic American interrogation. As a matter of policy, we suggest that the videotaping of entire interrogations from a balanced camera perspective is necessary to improve the fact finding accuracy of judges and juries who must evaluate confession evidence in court.
The Cultural Cognition Project (CCP) at Yale Law School and the Project on Law and Mind Sciences (PLMS) at Harvard Law School draw on similar research and share a similar goal of uncovering the dynamics that shape risk perceptions, policy beliefs, and attributions underlying our laws and legal theories. Nonetheless, the projects have failed to engage one another in a substantial way. This Article attempts to bridge that gap by demonstrating how the situationist approach taken by PLMS scholars can crucially enrich CCP scholarship. As a demonstration, the Article engages the case of Scott v. Harris, 127 S. Ct. 1769 (2007), the subject of a recent CCP study. In Scott, the Supreme Court relied on a videotape of a high-speed police chase to conclude that an officer did not commit a Fourth Amendment violation when he purposefully caused the suspect’s car to crash by ramming the vehicle’s back bumper. Challenging the Court’s conclusion that “no reasonable juror” could see the motorist’s evasion of the police as anything but extremely dangerous, CCP Professors Dan M. Kahan, David A. Hoffman, and Donald Braman showed the video to 1,350 people and discovered clear rifts in perception based on ideological, cultural, and other lines. Despite the valuable contribution of their research in uncovering the influence of identity-defining characteristics and commitments on perceptions, Kahan, Hoffman, and Braman failed to engage what may well be a more critical dynamic shaping the cognitions of their subjects and the members of the Supreme Court in Scott: the role of situational frames in guiding attributions of causation, responsibility, and blame. As social psychologists have documented - and as PLMS scholars have emphasized - while identities, experiences, and values matter, their operation and impact is not stable across cognitive tasks, but rather is contingent on the way in which information is presented and the broader context in which it is processed. In large part, the Scott video is treated - both by the Supreme Court and by Kahan, Hoffman, and Braman - as if it presents a neutral, unfiltered account of events. This is incorrect. Studies of viewpoint bias suggest that the fact that the video offers the visual and aural perspective of a police officer participating in the chase - rather than that of the suspect or a neutral third party - likely had a significant effect on both the experimental population and members of the Court. Had the Supreme Court watched a different video of the exact same events taken from inside the suspect’s car, this case may never have been taken away from the jury. Any discussion of judicial “legitimacy” - in both the descriptive and normative sense - must start here. The real danger for our justice system may not ultimately be the “visible fiction” of a suspect’s version of events, as Justice Scalia would have it, or cognitive illiberalism as Kahan, Hoffman, and Braman would, but the invisible influence of situational frames systematically prejudicing those who come before our courts.
Basic questions are raised concerning police interrogations, the risk of false confessions, and the impact that such evidence has on a jury. On the basis of available research, it was concluded that the criminal justice system currently does not afford adequate protection to innocent people branded as suspects and that there are serious dangers associated with confession evidence. The specific problems are threefold: (a) The police routinely use deception, trickery, and psychologically coercive methods of interrogation; (b) these methods may, at times, cause innocent people to confess to crimes they did not commit; and (c) when coerced self-incriminating statements are presented in the courtroom, juries do not sufficiently discount the evidence in reaching a verdict. It is argued that the topic of confession evidence has largely been overlooked by the scientific community and that further research is needed to build a useful empirical foundation.
In recent years, numerous individuals who confessed to and were convicted of serious felony crimes have been released from prison - some after many years of incarceration - and declared factually innocent. Often, these individuals are freed as a result of DNA tests that were not possible at the time of arrest, prosecution, and conviction. DNA testing has also exonerated numerous individuals who confessed to serious crimes before their cases went to trial. In this article, we analyze 125 recent cases of proven interrogation-induced false confessions (i.e., cases in which indisputably innocent individuals confessed to crimes they did not commit) and how these cases were treated by officials in the criminal justice system. This article has three goals. First, we provide and analyze basic demographic, legal, and case-specific descriptive data from these 125 cases. This is significant because this is the largest cohort of interrogation-induced false confession cases ever identified and studied in the research literature. Second, we analyze the role that (false) confession evidence played in these cases and how the defendants in these cases were treated by the criminal justice system. In particular, this article focuses on how criminal justice officials and triers-of-fact respond to confession evidence, whether it biases their evaluations and overwhelms other evidence (particularly evidence of innocence), and how likely false confessions are to lead to the wrongful arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of the innocent. Analysis of the aforementioned questions leads to the conclusion that the problem of interrogation-induced false confession in the American criminal justice system is far more significant than previously supposed. Furthermore, the problem of interrogation-induced false confessions has profound implications for the study of miscarriages of justice as well as the proper administration of justice. Third, and finally, this article suggests that several promising policy reforms, particularly mandatory electronic recording of police interrogations, will minimize the number of false confessions and thereby inject a much needed dose of justice into the American criminal justice system.
Videotape is becoming an increasingly common means of recording and presenting confessions that are obtained during custodial interrogations. Many scientific, legal, and political experts view this procedural advance as a solution to the growing problem of some innocent people being induced to incriminate themselves when confronted by standard police interrogation tactics. We review a program of research that indicates, however, that the indiscriminate application of videotaping to solve the problem of coerced or false confessions slipping through the system could ironically exacerbate the situation.
Ninety-nine police officers, not identified in previous research as belonging to groups that are superior in lie detection, attempted to detect truths and lies told by suspects during their videotaped police interviews. Accuracy rates were higher than those typically found in deception research and reached levels similar to those obtained by specialized lie detectors in previous research. Accuracy was positively correlated with perceived experience in interviewing suspects and with mentioning cues to detecting deceit that relate to a suspect's story. Accuracy was negatively correlated with popular stereotypical cues such as gaze aversion and fidgeting. As in previous research, accuracy and confidence were not significantly correlated, but the level of confidence was dependent on whether officers judged actual truths or actual lies and on the method by which confidence was measured.
The Central Park jogger case and other recent exonerations highlight the problem of wrongful convictions, 15% to 25% of which have contained confessions in evidence. Recent research suggests that actual innocence does not protect people across a sequence of pivotal decisions: (a) In preinterrogation interviews, investigators commit false-positive errors, presuming innocent suspects guilty; (b) naively believing in the transparency of their innocence, innocent suspects waive their rights; (c) despite or because of their denials, innocent suspects elicit highly confrontational interrogations; (d) certain commonly used techniques lead suspects to confess to crimes they did not commit; and (e) police and others cannot distinguish between uncorroborated true and false confessions. It appears that innocence puts innocents at risk, that consideration should be given to reforming current practices, and that a policy of videotaping interrogations is a necessary means of protection.
Previous studies have shown that the emotional behavior displayed during testimony may affect the perceived credibility of the witness. The present study compares credibility ratings by Norwegian court judges with those made by lay people. The participants viewed one of three video-recorded versions of a rape victim's statement, role played by a professional actress. The statement was given in a free-recall manner with one of three kinds of emotions displayed, termed congruent, neutral, and incongruent emotional expression. The results show that, in contrast to lay people, the credibility ratings of court judges and their votes for a guilty verdict were not influenced by the emotions displayed by the witness. Results are discussed in terms of professional expertise.
The camera perspective from which a criminal confession is videotaped influences later assessments of its voluntariness and the suspect's guilt. Previous research has suggested that this camera perspective bias is rooted in perceptual rather than conceptual processes, but these data are strictly correlational. In 3 experiments, the authors directly manipulated perceptual processing to provide stronger evidence of its mediational role. Prior to viewing a videotape of a simulated confession, participants were shown a photograph of the confessor's apparent victim. Participants in a perceptual interference condition were instructed to visualize the image of the victim in their minds while viewing the videotape; participants in a conceptual interference condition were instructed instead to rehearse an 8-digit number. Because mental imagery and actual perception draw on the same available resources, the authors anticipated that the former, but not the latter, interference task would disrupt the camera perspective bias, if indeed it were perceptually mediated. Results supported this conclusion.
This chapter discusses the social psychologists study “top of the head” phenomena in their experimental investigations. Attention within the social environment is selective. It is drawn to particular features of the environment either as a function of qualities intrinsic to those features (such as light or movement) or as a function of the perceiver's own dispositions and temporary need states. These conditions are outlined in the chapter. As a result of differential attention to particular features, information about those features is more available to the perceiver. Relative to the quantity of information retained about other features, more is retained about the salient features. When the salient person is the self, the same effects occur, and the individual is also found to show more consistency in attitudes and behaviors. These processes may occur primarily in situations which are redundant, unsurprising, uninvolving, and unarousing. They seem to occur automatically and substantially without awareness, and as such, they differ qualitatively from the intentional, conscious, controlled kind of search which characterizes all the behavior.
A large body of evidence indicates that people attribute unwarranted causality (influence) to a stimulus simply because it is more noticeable or salient than other available stimuli. This article reviews recent research demonstrating that this illusory–causation phenomenon can produce serious prejudicial effects with regard to how people evaluate certain types of legal evidence. Specifically, evaluations of videotaped confessions can be significantly altered by presumably inconsequential changes in the camera perspective taken when the confessions are initially recorded. Videotaped confessions recorded with the camera focused on the suspect—compared with videotapes from other camera points of view (e.g., focused equally on the suspect and interrogator) or with more traditional presentation formats (i.e., transcripts and audiotapes)—lead mock jurors to judge that the confessions were more voluntary and, most important, that the suspects are more likely to be guilty. Because actual criminal interrogations are customarily videotaped with the camera lens zeroed in on the suspect, these findings are of considerable practical significance.
It is noted that in criminal trials, fact finders that include judges and jurors make decisions based on the evaluation of the evidence presented. The kind of evidence that possibly has the greatest impact on the decision making of these trial fact finders is a defendant's prior admission of guilt. The type of interrogation pressure used to induce an admission of guilt is one factor that can bias the evaluation of confession evidence. This chapter describes findings from a programmatic series of studies that demonstrate that confession evidence presented in a videotaped format, in certain instances, can introduce an undesirable bias in the evaluation of evidence by trial decision-makers. The chapter presents results from other experiments that examine the basic processing mechanisms underlying this bias and discusses the policy implications of the present research for the system of jurisprudence. The basis lies in the extensive scientific literature concerning how people go about attributing causality to the behaviors and events that they observe in their environment.
Illusory causation and illusory correlation, two phenomena which have been observed both in object perception and in person perception, are discussed together with various explanations for these effects. It is proposed that the perception of salient stimuli as causal ma}' reflect the way in which the perceiver picks up information about the environment and that the perception of salient stimuli as correlated may reflect the perceiver's attunement to particular environmental invariants. Research evidence consistent with these propositions is reviewed, and research which would more directly test them is suggested.
Considerable evidence indicates that people overattribute causality to a given stimulus when it is salient or the focus of their attention--the so-called illusory-causation phenomenon. Although illusory causation has proved to be quite robust and generalizable, a compelling explanation for it has not been empirically documented. Four social-attribution studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that illusory causation occurs because salient information is initially registered, or perceptually organized, differently than nonsalient information. The results provide considerable support for the notion that people's literal point of view affects how they initially perceive, or extract, information from an observed interaction, which in turn affects their judgments regarding the causal influence exerted by each interactant.
Camera perspective bias in videotaped confessions: Experimen-tal evidence of its perceptual basis Salience, attention, and attribution: Top of the head phenomena
- G D Volume
- Lassiter
Volume 18—Number 3 225 G.D. Lassiter et al. rRatcliff, J.J., Lassiter, G.D., Schmidt, H.C., & Snyder, C.J. (2006). Camera perspective bias in videotaped confessions: Experimen-tal evidence of its perceptual basis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12, 197–206. Taylor, S.E., & Fiske, S.T. (1978). Salience, attention, and attribution: Top of the head phenomena. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 11, pp. 249–288). New York: Academic Press
- Jackson V Denno
Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (1964).