Interpretation of statistical evidence in criminal trials
Interpretation of statistical evidence in criminal trials
复制标题
刑事审判中统计证据的解释
DOI：
10.1007/bf01044641
复制
发表时间：
1987
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Edward L. Schumann
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
W. Thompson;Edward L. Schumann
在证据显示被告与犯罪人在某些特征上匹配的刑事案件中，陪审团经常会收到有关“匹配”特征发生率的统计证据。两项实验测试了本科生在根据书面证据描述判断犯罪嫌疑人可能有罪时正确使用此类证据的能力。实验 1 改变了发生率统计数据以条件概率还是百分比的形式呈现，发现前者促进了有利于检方的推理错误，而后者产生了更多有利于辩方的错误。实验 2 向受试者展示了关于如何解释统计证据的两个错误论点。大多数受试者未能发现一个或两个论点中的错误，并做出与错误推理一致的判断。在这两个实验中，受试者的判断与贝叶斯规范的比较揭示了未充分利用统计证据的普遍趋势。讨论了这些结果的理论和法律含义。
In criminal cases where the evidence shows a match between the defendant and the perpetrator on some characteristic, the jury often receives statistical evidence on the incidence rate of the “matching” characteristic. Two experiments tested undergraduates' ability to use such evidence appropriately when judging the probable guilt of a criminal suspect based on written descriptions of evidence. Experiment 1 varied whether incidence rate statistics were presented as conditional probabilities or as percentages, and found the former promoted inferential errors favoring the prosecution while the latter produced more errors favoring the defense. Experiment 2 exposed subjects to two fallacious arguments on how to interpret the statistical evidence. The majority of subjects failed to detect the error in one or both of the arguments and made judgments consistent with fallacious reasoning. In both experiments a comparison of subjects' judgments to Bayesian norms revealed a general tendency to underutilize the statistical evidence. Theoretical and legal implications of these results are discussed.