25 research outputs found
From Meaning to Money: Translating Injury Into Dollars
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Psychological Association via the DOI in this record.Legal systems often require the translation of qualitative assessments into quantitative
judgments, yet the qualitative-to-quantitative conversion is a challenging, understudied process.
We conducted an experimental test of predictions from a new theory of juror damage award
decision making, examining how 154 lay people engaged in the translation process in
recommending money damages for pain and suffering in a personal injury tort case. The
experiment varied the presence, size, and meaningfulness of an anchor number to determine how
these factors influenced monetary award judgments, perceived difficulty, and subjective
meaningfulness of awards. As predicted, variability in awards was high, with awards
participants considered to be “medium” (rather than “low” or “high”) having the most dispersion.
The gist of awards as low, medium, or high fully mediated the relationship between perceived
pain/suffering and award amount. Moreover, controlling for participants’ perceptions of
plaintiffs and defendants, as well as their desire to punish and to take economic losses into
account, meaningful anchors predicted unique variance in award judgments: A meaningful large
anchor number drove awards up and a meaningful small anchor drove them down, whereas
meaningless large and small anchors did not differ significantly. Numeracy did not predict
award magnitudes or variability, but surprisingly, more numerate participants reported that it was
more difficult to pick an exact figure to compensate the plaintiff for pain and suffering. The
results support predictions of the theory about qualitative gist and meaningful anchors, and
suggest that we can assist jurors to arrive at damage awards by providing meaningful numbers.Preparation of this article was funded by National Science Foundation grant SES1536238:
“Quantitative Judgments in Law: Studies of Damage Award Decision Making” to
Valerie P. Hans and Valerie F. Reyna
Expert Decision Making: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory Perspective
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Routledge via the ISBN in this recor
Trial by Numbers
This is the final version of the article. Freely available from the publisher via the link in this record.Legal cases often require jurors to use numerical information. They
may need to evaluate the meaning of specific numbers, such as the
probability of match between a suspect and a DNA sample, or they may
need to arrive at a sound numerical judgment, such as a money damage
award. Thus, it is important to know how jurors understand numerical
information, and what steps can be taken to increase juror comprehension
and appropriate application of numerical evidence. In this Article,
we examine two types of juror decisions involving numbers––decisions
in which jurors must convert numbers into meaning (such as by understanding
numerical evidence in order to determine guilt or liability), and
decisions in which jurors must convert meaning into numbers (such as by
understanding qualitative evidence and converting this into a numerical
damage award amount). In each of these areas we analyze legal cases
and research to examine areas in which dealing with numbers leads to
sound or sub-optimal decision making in jurors. We then examine psychological
theory and research on numerical decision making to understand
how informed, fair, and consistent juror decision making about
numbers can be promoted. We conclude that what is often most important
is juror understanding of the meaning of numbers in context rather
than technically precise numerical ability, supporting the role of the lay
jury. We also suggest how to improve juror understanding, so that jury
decisions better reflect considered community judgment.Preparation of this Article was supported
in part by the Martha E. Foulk Fellowship awarded to Rebecca K. Helm, by National Science
Foundation award SES-1536238: “Quantitative Judgments in Law: Studies of Damage Award
Decision Making” to Valerie P. Hans and Valerie F. Reyna, by a grant from Cornell University’s
Institute for Social Sciences to Valerie P. Hans and Valerie F. Reyna, and by National
Institute of Health (National Institute of Nursing Research) award RO1NR014368-01 to Valerie
F. Reyna
Brain activation covaries with reported criminal behaviors when making risky choices: A fuzzy-trace theory approach
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Psychological Association via the DOI in this record.Criminal behavior has been associated with abnormal neural activity when people experience
risks and rewards or exercise inhibition. However, neural substrates of mental representations
that underlie criminal and noncriminal risk-taking in adulthood have received scant attention. We
take a new approach, applying fuzzy-trace theory, to examine neural substrates of risk
preferences and criminality. We extend ideas about gist (simple meaning) and verbatim (precise
risk-reward tradeoffs) representations used to explain adolescent risk-taking to uncover neural
correlates of developmentally inappropriate adult risk-taking. We tested predictions using a
risky-choice framing task completed in the MRI scanner, and examined neural covariation with
self-reported criminal and noncriminal risk-taking. As predicted, risk-taking was correlated with
a behavioral pattern of risk preferences called “reverse framing” (preferring sure losses over a
risky option and a risky option over sure gains, the opposite of typical framing biases) that has
been linked to risky behavior in adolescents and is rarely observed in nondisordered adults.
Experimental manipulations confirmed processing interpretations of typical framing (gist-based)
and reverse-framing (verbatim-based) risk preferences. In the brain, covariation with criminal
and noncriminal risk-taking was observed predominantly when subjects made reverse-framing
choices. Noncriminal risk-taking behavior was associated with emotional reactivity (amygdala)
and reward motivation (striatal) areas, whereas criminal behavior was associated with greater
activation in temporal and parietal cortices, their junction, and insula. When subjects made more
developmentally typical framing choices, reflecting non-preferred gist processing, activation in
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex covaried with criminal risk-taking, which may reflect cognitive
effort to process gist while inhibiting preferred verbatim processin
Limitations on the ability to negotiate justice: Attorney perspectives on guilt, innocence, and legal advice in the current plea system
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this recordIn the American criminal justice system the vast majority of criminal convictions occur as the
result of guilty pleas, often made as a result of plea bargains, rather than jury trials. The
incentives offered in exchange for guilty pleas mean that both innocent and guilty defendants
plead guilty. We investigate the role of attorneys in this context, through interviews with
criminal defense attorneys. We examine defense attorney perspectives on the extent to which
innocent defendants are (and should be) pleading guilty in the current legal framework and their
views of their own role in this complex system. We also use a hypothetical case to probe the
ways in which defense attorneys consider guilt or innocence when providing advice on pleas.
Results indicate that attorney advice is influenced by guilt or innocence, but also that attorneys
are limited in the extent to which they can negotiate justice for their clients in a system in which
uncertainty and large discrepancies between outcomes of guilty pleas and conviction at trial can
make it a sensible option to plead guilty even when innocent. Results also suggest conflicting
opinions over the role of the attorney in the plea-bargaining process
Guiding Jurors’ Damage Award Decisions: Experimental Investigations of Approaches Based on Theory and Practice
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Psychological Association via the DOI in this recordTheory and practitioner “scaling” advice informed hypotheses that guidance to mock jurors should (a) increase validity (vertical equity), decrease variability (reliability), and improve coherence in awards; (b) improve subjective experience of jurors’ decision-making (rated helpfulness, confidence, and difficulty); and (c) have the greatest impact when it includes both verbal and numerical benchmarks. Three mock juror experiments (N = 197 students, N = 476 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, and N = 391 students) tested novel scaling approaches and predictions from the Hans-Reyna model of damage award decision-making. Jurors reviewed a legal case and provided a dollar award to compensate plaintiffs for pain and suffering following concussions. Experiments varied injury severity (low vs. high) and the plaintiff attorney’s guidance (no guidance, verbal guidance, numerical guidance, and verbal-plus-numerical guidance) between subjects. Results support predictions that, even without guidance, mock jurors appropriately categorize the gist of injuries as low or high severity, and dollar awards reflect that gist. Participants gave a higher award for more severe injuries, indicating that they extracted the qualitative gist of damages. Also, as expected, guidance, particularly verbal-plus-numerical guidance, had beneficial effects on jurors’ subjective experience, with participants reporting that it was a helpful aid in decision-making. Numerical guidance, both with and without verbal guidance, reduced award variability in severe injury cases in all three experiments. Scaling guidance did not improve the already strong gist-verbatim correspondence or award validity. Both grasping the gist of damages and mapping that gist onto numbers are important, but jurors appear to benefit from assistance with numerical mapping
QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives
We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe
Fuzzy trace theory: Memory and decision-making in law, medicine, and public health
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via the DOI in this recordFuzzy Trace Theory (FTT) is a dual-process theory of memory and decision-making that distinguishes two types of mental representations – gist and verbatim – which are encoded simultaneously. These representations have different characteristics; the representation relied on when making decisions influences the way that decisions are made. Through distinguishing gist and verbatim representations, FTT explains known effects, but it also predicts novel and counterintuitive effects, such as developmental reversals when children are less susceptible to spontaneous false memories or to irrational decision biases, compared with adults. Understanding these effects, how they occur under predictable conditions, is important in informing practice and policy. Such understanding mitigates against weaknesses in policy based on ‘common-sense’ rather than evidence and provides insight into both whether and how policy change is likely to have an effect. To facilitate this understanding, we introduce basic precepts of FTT and supporting research. We then show how these findings have important applications and implications for policy. We focus on the following areas – insight into mechanisms behind false memory that can inform policy relating to witness memory in the legal system, insight into the evaluation of evidence that can inform the presentation of medical information and reduce the impact of fake health news, and insight into risky decision-making that can inform policy seeking to reduce unhealthy and illegal risky behaviors and to ensure that decisions to plead guilty or go to trial in the criminal justice system are made for reasons that are normatively acceptable.UK Research and InnovationNational Science Foundation (NSF)National Institutes of Health (NIH
Oncoid growth and distribution controlled by sea-level fluctuations and climate (Late Oxfordian, Swiss Jura Mountains)
Abundant lagoonal oncoids occur in the Late Oxfordian Hauptmumienbank Member of the Swiss Jura Mountains. Four oncoid types are observed in the studied sections and classified according to the oncoid surface morphology, the structure and composition of the cortex, and the texture and fauna of the encasing sediment. Micrite-dominated oncoids (types 1 and 2) have a smooth surface. Type 1 has a rather homogeneous cortex and occurs in moderate-energy environments. Type 2 presents continuous or discontinuous micritic laminae. It is associated with a low-diversity fauna and occurs in high-energy facies. Bacinella and Lithocodium oncoids (types 3 and 4) display a lobate surface. They are dominated by microencrusters (Bacinella irregularis and Lithocodium aggregatum) and are found in low-energy facies. The stratigraphic and spatial distribution of these oncoid types shows a correlation with the sequence-stratigraphic evolution of the studied interval, and thus with relative sea-level fluctuations. It can be shown that these sea-level fluctuations were controlled by orbital cycles with 100- and 20-kyr periodicities. At the scale of 100- and 20-kyr sequences, types 1 and 2 oncoids are preferentially found around sequence boundaries and in transgressive deposits, while types 3 and 4 oncoids are preferentially found around maximum floodings and in highstand deposits. This implies that changes of water energy and water depth were direct controlling factors. Discrepancies in oncoid distribution point to additional controlling factors. Platform morphology defines the distribution and type of the lagoon where the oncoids flourished. A low accumulation rate is required for oncoid growth. Additionally, humidity changes in the hinterland act on the terrigenous influx, which modifies water transparency and trophic level and thus plays a role in the biotic composition and diversity in the oncoid cortex