While there is much conjecture regarding how jurors sort through and order information in hearing evidence and making decisions, there is only limited knowledge about what actually occurs and why. Some of the best work that has sought to unravel how people reason posits a story model to explain how jurors' judgments are reached. To date, based on experimental study, the story model has generated a compelling theory about how jurors understand evidence and make decisions prior to deliberation in juries. In contrast to additive and algebraic models that posit that jurors add or average information to arrive at their decisions, the story model emphasizes explanation-based components of juror comprehension and reasoning. Dr. Pennington, who along with Dr. Hastie has pioneered the story model, is now embarked on this next stage of the research. The current experimental program aims (1) to specify the process components of the theory by examining the inferences made during the comprehension of evidence and the factors that influence which inferences are made at what points in the comprehension process; (2) to determine the relationship and interaction between processing stages proposed in the model--story construction, verdict learning, and story clarification--which have been assumed to occur sequentially but might occur in a more repetitive cycling fashion; and (3) to establish the robustness and boundaries of the story model through the use of case materials less immediately susceptible to story construction. The experiments are each labor- intensive studies that use sophisticated methods to analyze the micro processes of decisionmaking. The combined program should advance our basic understanding of jury decisionmaking and of other types of legal judgments such as accounts of disputes, litigant perceptions of events, and attorney and judicial decisionmaking. Also, this research should add to our general knowledge about the cognitive mechanisms that mediate social processes and decisions.
