COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Jurors' Use of Scientific Information

在民事和刑事案件中，陪审团在做出决定时，经常依靠和解释基于科学研究的证据。科学信息的有效性和可靠性各不相同，但陪审员通常不是专家，他们在做出决定时不具备区分弱科学信息和强科学信息的必要工具。为了评估在法庭上解释科学证据的问题，该项目使用了一种实验方法来检查陪审员解释科学证据和根据科学证据采取行动的能力。为了做到这一点，这个项目包括陪审团模拟，将检查陪审员和陪审团对法庭上提出的强而弱的科学信息的敏感性。该项目包括两个陪审团模拟实验，旨在测试认知科学中的一种成熟理论--模糊踪迹理论是否适用于陪审团研究，特别是与关于科学证据的陪审团决策的其他保障措施相比。这项多学科、多方法的研究将审查陪审员的推论何时以及如何与科学信息的强度进行适当的校准，从决策理论衍生的保障是否可以改善这种校准，以及与科学信息处理相关的各种措施如何相互关联。该项目解决了关于人类如何根据相关科学数据的质量进行推理、做出推断和决策的根本问题。

Juries often rely on and interpret evidence based on scientific research when making decisions in civil and criminal cases. The validity and reliability of scientific information varies, yet jurors generally are non-experts who do not possess the necessary tools to differentiate between weak and strong scientific information when making decisions. To assess the issue of interpretation of scientific evidence in court, this project uses an experimental approach to examine jurors' ability to interpret and act on scientific evidence. To do so, this project consists of jury simulations that will examine jurors' and juries' sensitivity to strong versus weak scientific information presented in court. The project includes two jury simulation experiments designed to test whether fuzzy trace theory, a well-developed theory in cognitive science, applies in the context of jury research, particularly when compared to other safeguards for jury decision making with respect to scientific evidence. This multidisciplinary, multi-method research will examine when and how jurors' inferences are appropriately calibrated to the strength of scientific information, whether a safeguard derived from decision-making theory can improve that calibration, and how various measures relevant to the processing of scientific information are related to one another. The project addresses fundamental questions about how humans reason with and make inferences and decisions based on the quality of relevant scientific data.