title: Contextual biases in the interpretation of auditory evidence.
abstract: Noisy recordings of dialogue often serve as evidence in criminal proceedings. The present article explores the ability of two types of contextual information, currently present in the legal system, to bias subjective interpretations of such evidence. The present experiments demonstrate that the general context of the legal system and the presence of transcripts of the recorded speech are both able to bias interpretations of degraded & benign recordings into interpretable & incriminating. Furthermore we demonstrate a curse of knowledge whereby people become miscalibrated to the true quality of degraded recordings when provided transcripts. Current methods of dealing with auditory evidence are insufficient to mollify the effects of biasing information within the criminal justice system.
authors.affiliation: Decision Processes Laboratory, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019-2007, USA. nlange@psychology.ou.edu
authors.forename: Nick D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.forename: Rick P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dana
authors.forename: Robyn M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Dawes
mesh_terms: D057237:Criminals; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D016015:Logistic Models; D015146:Midwestern United States; D009622:Noise; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013067:Speech Perception; D014495:Universities; D014741:Video Recording