Measuring the Objectivity and Bias of Experts

专家证词往往是刑事和民事审判的一个重要方面，部分原因是人们认为专家的客观性及其专业知识。然而，个人容易受到心理偏见的影响，这可能会损害客观的判断和决策，即使他们在认识到他人的偏见时没有意识到自己的偏见。如果专家也同样容易受到偏见的影响，那么他们的客观性就会受到影响，可能会影响审判结果，也许会引起有关公平审判的宪法问题。该项目将衡量和记录专家对自己偏见的看法，以及他们对这些偏见的潜在误解的后果。因此，该项目有可能告知法律的系统中的行为者如何限制专家决策中的偏见。该项目将采用旨在记录专家偏见的调查和实验，以及他们对这些偏见的看法。此外，它还将研究专家和非专家在偏见方面的差异。重点将是法律的领域的专家，包括法医心理健康和指纹鉴定专家。该项目将测试“偏见盲点”的假设，即倾向于认识到他人的偏见，而不是自己。因此，该项目旨在比较专家与非专家的任何偏见盲点。将利用对各领域专家和非专家的调查，记录专家和非专家的偏见盲点。然后，该项目将采用实验来测量专家对各种偏见的实际敏感性以及他们对这些敏感性的认识。该项目还将调查对专家客观性过分自信的后果。该项目的去识别数据将公开提供。

Expert testimony is often a critical aspect of criminal and civil trials, in part because of perceived objectivity of experts and their expertise. Yet, individuals are susceptible to psychological biases that can compromise objective judgment and decision making, even if they are unaware of their own bias while recognizing it in others. If experts are similarly susceptible to bias, then their compromised objectivity could influence the outcome of trials, perhaps raising constitutional issues with respect to fair trials. This project will measure and document experts' perception of their own biases, as well as the consequences of their potential misperceptions of those biases. As a consequence, this project has the potential to inform actors in the legal system about ways to limit bias in expert decision making.This project will employ surveys and experiments designed to document biases of experts, and their perception of those biases. Further, it will examine differences that experts and non-experts have with respect to their biases. The focus will be on experts in the legal field, including forensic mental health and fingerprint identification experts. The project will test the hypothesis of "bias blind spot," which is the tendency to recognize bias in others but not oneself. Thus, the project is designed to compare any bias blind spots of experts with that of non-experts. Surveys of experts and non-experts in various fields will be utilized to document experts' and non-experts' bias blind spots. Then, the project will employ experiments that measure experts' actual susceptibility to various biases and their awareness of those susceptibilities. The project also will investigate the consequences of exaggerated confidence in experts' objectivity. De-identified data from the project will be made publicly available.