Cognitive-psychology expertise and the calculation of the probability of a wrongful conviction

Cognitive psychologists are familiar with how their expertise in understanding human perception, memory, and decision-making is applicable to the justice system. They may be less familiar with how their expertise in statistical decision-making and their comfort working in noisy real-world environmen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychonomic bulletin & review Vol. 25; no. 6; pp. 2380 - 2388
Main Authors Rouder, Jeffrey N., Wixted, John T., Christenfeld, Nicholas J. S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.12.2018
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Bayes Theorem
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Brief Report
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Science
Convictions
Crime - legislation & jurisprudence
Crime - psychology
Crime - statistics & numerical data
Criminal investigations
Criminal Psychology
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Decision Making
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Evidence
Expert Testimony
False arrests & convictions
Forensic Psychology
Forensic sciences
Humans
Law Enforcement
Male
Memory
Michigan
Probability
Psychologists
Psychology
Random walk theory
State laws
Trials
Unsolved crimes
Michigan
New York
United States > US
Decision-making
Probability
Law
Subjectivity
Bayes theorem
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Summary:Cognitive psychologists are familiar with how their expertise in understanding human perception, memory, and decision-making is applicable to the justice system. They may be less familiar with how their expertise in statistical decision-making and their comfort working in noisy real-world environments is just as applicable. Here we show how this expertise in ideal-observer models may be leveraged to calculate the probability of guilt of Gary Leiterman, a man convicted of murder on the basis of DNA evidence. We show by common probability theory that Leiterman is likely a victim of a tragic contamination event rather than a murderer. Making any calculation of the probability of guilt necessarily relies on subjective assumptions. The conclusion about Leiterman’s innocence is not overly sensitive to the assumptions—the probability of innocence remains high for a wide range of reasonable assumptions. We note that cognitive psychologists may be well suited to make these calculations because as working scientists they may be comfortable with the role a reasonable degree of subjectivity plays in analysis.
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ISSN:1069-9384
1531-5320
DOI:10.3758/s13423-018-1465-2