Available online 22 July 2016
Working Memory and Cognitive Load in the Legal System: Influences on Police Shooting Decisions, Interrogation and Jury Decisions ☆
C
The
ability of police and jurors to make informed, unbiased decisions is
paramount to the integrity of the legal system. Police and jurors as
decision-makers follow procedures ensuring that individuals receive a
fair trial from the time of arrest to sentencing. However this process
has come under public scrutiny with recent negative media attention
focused on police shootings, aggressive handling or interrogation of
suspects, and jurors’ seemingly biased treatment of minority group
members. Most researchers studying factors that motivate police and
juror behavior focus on the external influences of decision-making, such
as the climate of violence in a neighborhood, or culturally-entrenched
criminal stereotypes. Fewer have focused on the cognitive factors that
impact the internal decision-making processes. In this review we compile
the research on individual differences in cognitive ability (e.g.,
working memory capacity) and event circumstances (e.g., high emotion,
attention load), that influence police and jury decision-making. The
majority of studies in this area are laboratory-based which may
attenuate the transfer of findings to real-world settings, but cognitive
mechanisms engaged in the field are likely similar. Overall, this
review suggests that overload of cognitive capacity reduces controlled
processing ability, which may work to undermine the reliability of
decision-making at all phases of the legal process. Field studies are
needed to better understand when decision-makers may be overburdened,
and what interventions are most appropriate.
