Interpretation of a crisis call: Persistence of a primed perception of a disputed utterance

Abstract

This article describes an experiment designed to explore the effects of 'priming' (i.e. being exposed to a suggested interpretation of an audio signal) on how juries perceive disputed utterances in poor quality recordings used as evidence in legal cases. Using the actual disputed utterance from a real case, the experiment tracked how participants' perception of its content changed as 'evidence' about the case was gradually revealed to them. At a certain point, participants were randomly divided into two groups, each receiving systematically different 'evidence' - with significant effects on their interpretation of the section of interest. Results indicate that the dangers of juries being pri..