9514966 Lassiter Within the criminal justice system, there is a growing trend toward utilizing videotape technology to record and to present confession evidence. However, despite the seeming objectivity associated with the making and subsequent evaluation of a videotaped interrogation and confession, the literature on salience effects in causal attribution suggests that certain aspects of this process could inadvertently bias or prejudice judgments of voluntariness and guilt. Consistent with this literature, our preliminary studies show that, relative to other confession-presentation formats (e. g., audiotapes and transcripts), videotapes that are recorded with the focus on the confessor tend to produce judgments of greater voluntariness and guilt. These findings have important legal implications. This research will build on our preliminary results in two ways. The first line of investigation will focus on determining whether the previously observed videotaped-confession bias can be eliminated or attenuated by certain standard criminal justice practices or by other factors that would likely come into play in real courts of law. The second line of investigation will focus on identifying the process or processes that underlie or mediate the videotaped-confession bias. The proposed research has considerable theoretical and applied significance because only when the limits of the videotaped-confession bias are clearly established and an adequate explanation for its occurrence is identified can appropriate decisions be made as to how to utilize videotaped confessions to the best benefit of the criminal justice system. %%%% Within the criminal justice system, there is a growing trend toward utilizing videotape technology to record and to present confession evidence. However, despite the seeming objectivity associated with the making and subsequent evaluation of a videotaped interrogation and confession, the literature on salience effects in causal attribution suggests that certain aspects of this process could inadvertently bias or prejudice judgments of voluntariness and guilt. Consistent with this literature, our preliminary studies show that, relative to other confession-presentation formats (e. g., audiotapes and transcripts), videotapes that are recorded with the focus on the confessor tend to produce judgments of greater voluntariness and guilt. These findings have important legal implications. This research will build on our preliminary results in two ways. The first line of investigation will focus on determining whether the previously observed videotaped-confession bias can be eliminated or attenuated by certain standard criminal justice practices or by other factors that would likely come into play in real courts of law. The second line of investigation will focus on identifying the process or processes that underlie or mediate the videotaped-confession bias. The proposed research has considerable theoretical and applied significance because only when the limits of the videotaped-confession bias are clearly established and an adequate explanation for its occurrence is identified can appropriate decisions be made as to how to utilize videotaped confessions to the best benefit of the criminal justice system.
