TY - JOUR
T1 - Emotional evidence and jurors' judgments
T2 - The promise of neuroscience for informing psychology and law
AU - Salerno, Jessica M.
AU - Bottoms, Bette L.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - This article is a review of psychological and neuroscience research addressing how juror decision making is influenced by emotion elicited from potentially disturbing evidence such as gruesome autopsy photographs, victim impact statements, and information about a defendant's tragic personal history presented as mitigating evidence. We review (a) converging evidence suggesting that the presence versus absence of such evidence results in more punitive juror judgments, (b) social cognition theories that provide potential explanations for these effects, and (c) neuroscience research aimed at understanding the role of emotion in moral judgments by identifying how brain activity is affected by emotion-eliciting stimuli. We argue that neuroimaging evidence showing that emotional stimuli cause heightened emotion and decreased effortful cognitive processing is relevant in understanding jurors' increased punitiveness after being exposed to emotional evidence, and in turn relevant to debates about the admissibility of emotional evidence in courts of law. Ultimately, we argue for more ecologically valid psychological research to clarify these important issues.
AB - This article is a review of psychological and neuroscience research addressing how juror decision making is influenced by emotion elicited from potentially disturbing evidence such as gruesome autopsy photographs, victim impact statements, and information about a defendant's tragic personal history presented as mitigating evidence. We review (a) converging evidence suggesting that the presence versus absence of such evidence results in more punitive juror judgments, (b) social cognition theories that provide potential explanations for these effects, and (c) neuroscience research aimed at understanding the role of emotion in moral judgments by identifying how brain activity is affected by emotion-eliciting stimuli. We argue that neuroimaging evidence showing that emotional stimuli cause heightened emotion and decreased effortful cognitive processing is relevant in understanding jurors' increased punitiveness after being exposed to emotional evidence, and in turn relevant to debates about the admissibility of emotional evidence in courts of law. Ultimately, we argue for more ecologically valid psychological research to clarify these important issues.
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U2 - 10.1002/bsl.861
DO - 10.1002/bsl.861
M3 - Review article
C2 - 19319835
AN - SCOPUS:65549111218
SN - 0735-3936
VL - 27
SP - 273
EP - 296
JO - Behavioral Sciences and the Law
JF - Behavioral Sciences and the Law
IS - 2
ER -