Understanding the Cognitive Factors and Legal Processes of Expert Opinions

Indiana University Of Pennsylvania Research Institute, Indiana PA

Investigators

Abstract

Title: Understanding Cognitive Factors and Legal Processes of Expert Opinions Abstract During trials, experts are often called to provide their opinion in order to help courts understand complicated issues. These experts are expected to remain objective when providing their evaluations, in large part because judges and juries can be influenced by expert opinions. This project will examine how expert decision making and legal procedures may lead to bias during forensic evaluations by experts. Further, this project will study and compare whether experts are influenced by the party that retains their services to provide expert opinions. The project includes the psychological theories of cognitive dissonance, framing, and confirmation bias as potential contributing factors that may bias expert opinions. Using actual forensic clinicians tasked with conducting mock forensic evaluations, this project will use an experimental approach to examine expert opinions. Manipulations in the experimental research design will examine experts "information review strategies to assess how cognitive dissonance, framing, and confirmation bias may affect experts" decision making during an evaluation and their ultimate impressions. The project also will examine the impact of these cognitive factors when experts are kept blind to the referral source retaining their services. By identifying how, when, and why expert bias develops during a forensic evaluation, this research can identify ways to increase objectivity among experts and bring about fairer case outcomes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.