The impact of prior trial experience on mock jurors' note taking during trials and recall of trial evidence

Lorek, Joanna, Centifanti, Luna C.M., Lyons, Minna, and Thorley, Craig (2019) The impact of prior trial experience on mock jurors' note taking during trials and recall of trial evidence. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. 47. pp. 1-10.

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Abstract

Although jurors' recall of trial evidence is often incomplete and inaccurate, courts rely on jurors' ability to remember trial evidence to reach just verdicts. Note taking has been found to enhance jurors' memory of trial evidence. However, the impact of serving on multiple trials on juror note taking and recall has not been examined. Findings from the educational literature demonstrate that students who are more experienced at note taking will take more notes and recall more lecture material. Thus, the current study is the first to investigate if similar benefits are obtained in jurors. Sixty participants attended two experimental sessions and acted as mock jurors. In each session, they watched one of two trial videos, a criminal and a civil trial (order of trials was counterbalanced). All jurors were permitted to take notes whilst watching the trials. Lastly, they were asked to reach a verdict and recall as much trial evidence as they could remember (none of the jurors had access to their notes during the recall task). Jurors wrote down more correct and critical evidence during the second session when compared to the first session. However, there was no statistically significant difference between session one and session two with regards to the quantity of correct and critical evidence jurors recalled. Thus, the present study demonstrates that trial experience enhances mock jurors' note taking, however, there is no additional enhancement regarding recall.

Item ID: 56906
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1664-1078
Keywords: juror, memory, note taking, prior experience, verdict
Copyright Information: Copyright © 2019 Lorek, Centifanti, Lyons and Thorley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Additional Information:

This article was submitted to Forensic and Legal Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Research Data: https://osf.io/jz72p/?view_only=6e74a412a0af4ff3ad49837f02a0 eb88
Date Deposited: 18 Feb 2019 04:34
FoR Codes: 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5201 Applied and developmental psychology > 520103 Forensic psychology @ 100%
SEO Codes: 94 LAW, POLITICS AND COMMUNITY SERVICES > 9404 Justice and the Law > 940403 Criminal Justice @ 50%
97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970117 Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences @ 50%
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