Understanding Confidence: Eyewitness Testimony as a Model Case

理解信心：目击者证词作为典范

基本信息

批准号：
1632174
负责人：
Chad Dodson
金额：
$ 24.08万
依托单位：
University of Virginia Main Campus
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2016-09-01 至 2019-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1632174&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Understanding Confidence Eyewitness Testimony Model

项目摘要

Everyday situations require individuals to understand another person's level of confidence in his/her memory. For example, when a spouse says, "I'm pretty sure I locked the door" do you interpret that statement as indicating that you should double check the lock or not. Interpretation of such expressions of confidence present important cognitive challenges and can be influenced by a number of different factors. The cognitive biases that can influence these interpretations of confidence and the approaches to expressing confidence that might limit the impact of these biases are important areas of research with wide-ranging applications. The current project examines these factors in the context of eyewitness identification. When an eyewitness identifies someone from a lineup and states, "I'm pretty sure it's him," how do we know that police, jurors and others will interpret this expression of confidence in the way that it was intended? While a large literature exists on eyewitness confidence and (a) its relationship with identification accuracy, (b) its influence on jurors, and (c) its vulnerability to influence from post-identification feedback, very little is known about how other people understand the verbal expressions of eyewitness confidence. The outcomes of this project in terms of a more thorough understanding of the cognitive factors that influence interpretations of confidence are anticipated to have broad implications for settings, such as judicial proceedings, that involve the interpretation of another person's confidence.This project investigates how people understand an eyewitness's verbal expression of confidence in the accuracy of his/her identification from a lineup of faces. There are three goals: first, the project examines how the particular content of an eyewitness's justification for his/her level of confidence (e.g., "I'm pretty certain it's him because I remember his chin") influences how people understand the eyewitness's confidence-statement. Second, there are a variety of cognitive biases that cause individuals to misinterpret the verbal expressions of certainty. For example, mounting research on the 'outcome-severity bias' shows that the identical verbal probability phrase (e.g., "it is somewhat likely") is interpreted as denoting a higher numerical likelihood when that phrase refers to more severe events rather than less severe events. The project considers whether eyewitness expressions of confidence are vulnerable to misunderstandings that are caused by the same kinds of cognitive biases. Third, the proposed experiments investigate whether the harmful influence of these cognitive biases can be mitigated by expressing confidence numerically instead of verbally. Overall, the project will fill a profound lack of knowledge about how people understand eyewitness confidence in a lineup identification. Moreover, the knowledge that verbal expressions of certainty are vulnerable to misinterpretations may: (a) guide police to obtain a numerical estimate of certainty from eyewitnesses; and (b) alert police, lawyers, judges and jurors to potential pitfalls about interpreting verbal expressions of certainty.

日常情况要求个人了解他人对自己的记忆的信心水平。例如，当配偶说“我很确定我锁上门”时，您是否将该陈述解释为表明您应该仔细检查锁。对这种信心表达的解释提出了重要的认知挑战，可以受许多不同因素的影响。可以影响这些信心解释的认知偏见，以及表达信心的方法，即可能限制这些偏见的影响是具有广泛应用的重要研究领域。当前的项目在目击者识别的背景下检查了这些因素。当目击者从阵容中确定某人并指出“我很确定是他”时，我们怎么知道警察，陪审员和其他人会以预期的方式来解释这种信心的表达？虽然大量文献存在着目击者的信心和（a）与识别准确性的关系，（b）对陪审员的影响，以及（c）其从识别后反馈中影响的疲倦，但对其他人如何理解目击者信心的口头表达知之甚少。该项目的结果是对影响信心解释的认知因素的更彻底的了解，预计会对诸如司法程序等设置具有广泛的影响，涉及对他人信心的解释。该项目调查了人们如何理解目击者的口头表达在他/她/她/面部阵容的准确性方面的信心表达。有三个目标：首先，该项目研究了目击者对他/她的信心水平的理由（例如，“我很确定是他，因为我记得他的下巴”）如何影响人们如何理解目击者的信心演讲。其次，有多种认知偏见会导致个人误解确定性的口头表达。例如，对“结果 - 严重性偏见”的越来越多的研究表明，当该短语提到更严重的事件而不是更严重的事件时，将相同的语言概率短语（例如，“有些可能”）解释为表示较高的数值可能性。该项目认为，目击者的信心表达是否容易受到由同种认知偏见引起的误解。第三，提出的实验研究了这些认知偏见的有害影响是否可以通过数值而不是语言表达置信度来减轻。总体而言，该项目将充分了解人们如何在阵容识别中了解目击者的信心。此外，知道确定性的口头表达容易被误解的知识可能：（a）指导警察获得目击者确定性的数值估计；（b）警告警察，律师，法官和陪审员可能会陷入解释确定性的言语表达的潜在陷阱。