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Negative and positive pretrial publicity affect juror memory and
1. Negative and Positive Pretrial
Publicity Affect Juror
Memory and Decision Making
Joseph Tinkham
Ruva, C. L., & McEvoy, C. (2008). Negative and positive
pretrial publicity affect juror memory and decision making.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14(3), 226-235.
2. Background
● Past research has found that source memory can be easily
influenced by misinformation
● Also research on the effects of negative PTP on juror
verdicts and ability to discriminate source information
● Past research criticized for not mimicking normal cognitive
strain of a real trial, lasting anywhere from hours to days
● Delay between when information is presented and retrieved
found to increase the number of errors
3. cont.
● This study is thought to be the first to analyze the effects of
positive PTP on juror's memory
● Predicted that positive PTP would have little effect because
of past research on negativity bias (people pay more
attention to negative information)
● Predicted that participants in the negative PTP condition
were more likely to render a guilty verdict and misattribute
source information from news article to court trial
● Also predicted that participants in the delay condition would
have poorer source-memory
4. Method
● N=159 participants (11 drop out)
● Mean age = 19 years old
● Used various Likert Scales to
measure:
○ defendant's guilt
○ source information and
confidence
○ various credibility
characteristics of the
defendant
○ ratings of the attorney
5. Methods cont.
● Randomly assigned to 3 conditions of PTP (news article
content):
○ Positive (Pro-Defendant)
○ Negative (Anti-Defendant)
○ Neutral (Unrelated)
● 5 days after reading, come back to view videotape trial
● give preliminary decision of defendant's guilt
● Randomly assigned to 2 time conditions:
○ Immediate - gave final verdict that session
○ Delay - gave final verdict 2 days later
6. Results
● both positive and negative PTP affects conviction rates of
jurors
● negative PTP was found to double the likelihood of guilty
verdict
● positive PTP decrease likelihood of guilty verdict and
increase defendant's credibility
● both PTP have negative effects on source-memory, thinking
material came from court trial
● Delay condition increase number of source-memory
7. Critique
● Overall Good
Design/measures
● Successfully built on
previous research
● Fitting conclusions
● Applicable to American
culture
● Lacks generalizability
outside American culture
● Question design of neutral
PTP condition
8. Discussion
● Do you think these results would affect the overall group
jurors' decision?
● How would you expected court and publicity culture to
influence results?
○ e.g. Guilty until proven innocent...
