Society imbues trained police officers with special authority to wield force when necessary against individuals who may be breaking the law. In the course of duty, police may enter high-conflict, possibly life-threatening situations, and yet officers must uphold the constitutional rights of citizens they encounter. It is a pervasive assumption that video footage depicting encounters between police and civilians, or members of any two different groups, will provide objective insight into the events that occur prior to and during altercations. This project, however, will test the hypothesis that mere provision of video evidence might not ensure a unified, impartial, or accurate understanding of the facts in a given case because visual experience may be inherently subjective. The project aims to deepen scientific understanding of what factors guide attention, and how attention guides subsequent information processing and decision-making, particularly in legal contexts.
A preliminary study by the researcher Emily Balcetis, New York University, suggested that video evidence can be divisive. People watched videotaped legal evidence in ways that increased the punitive nature of their punishment decisions when acting as arbiters of justice regarding individuals from social out-groups relative to in-groups. From these findings, the researcher developed her Blinding Justice Model of legal punishment, a model that challenges one basic assumption of the legal system that all "reasonable jurors" see the evidence the same way. The researcher will test this model in four studies that use eye tracking technology to measure where people direct their visual attention when watching video evidence, how attention changes understanding of case facts, and document the consequences of biased jury decision-making. An additional experiment tests whether an attention-based intervention can improve the accuracy of people's understanding of the events depicted in video footage, and reduce bias in punishment decisions. Understanding the potential pitfalls as well as benefits of videotape evidence is crucial in anticipating and solving the potential limitations of video, improving its ability to serve as an objective source of information, and attenuating its role in exaggerating the "us versus them" divide in America.
