The complexity and linguistic construction of jury instructions can inhibit jurors' ability to comprehend and apply the law. Study 1 analyzes questions asked by actual deliberating jurors in order to identify sources of juror misunderstanding in criminal pattern jury instructions. Instructions concerning “reasonable doubt,” criminal “intent,” the use of evidence concerning prior convictions, and the general duties of jurors, are selected for further investigation. Study 2 uses videotaped trial materials to pinpoint linguistic problems that confuse jurors and interfere with their abilities to accurately comprehend and apply the selected pattern jury instructions. Available knowledge concerning psycholinguistics is then applied to rewrite the troublesome instructions; in addition, legal expertise is consulted to help assure that the rewritten instructions are legally valid. Study 3 demonstrates that the rewritten instructions improve jurors' understanding relative to Pattern or No instructions. Overall, the research indicates the availability to the criminal justice system of improved methods for instructing jurors accurately and effectively in the law.

Social judgment theory and dissonance theory make different predictions about the effect on attitude change of discrepancies between a person's own position and a persuasive communication. Persuasive messages were given to 144 subjects in a three-factor design having three levels of discrepancy, two levels of source credibility, and two levels of ego-involvement. Dependent measures were attitude change, source credibility change, ego-involvement change, changes in latitudes of acceptance and rejection, and message evaluation. More attitude change occurred for low than for high ego-involvement. Attitude change was an increasing monotonic function of discrepancy for low ego-involvement, and a nonmonotonic function of discrepancy for high ego-involvement. After receipt of the persuasive message, low credible sources increased in authoritativeness and the importance of the low-ego-involvemcnt issue increased. A number of findings, significant beyond the .01 or .001 levels, were opposed to dissonance theory predictions. Most of the data arc consistent with social judgment theory.Among the many variables influencing attitude change, three have come into particularly sharp focus during the past decade: the credibility of the source of a persuasive communication, the role of ego-involvement in attitude change, and the discrepancy between a persuasive message and the attitude of persons upon whom influence is being exerted. These three factors are significant for two important, competing theories of attitude change, social judgment theory and dissonance theory.According to social judgment theory, susceptibility to attitude change depends upon the closeness of discrepant information to an attitudinal anchor. An attitudinal anchor is defined in terms of a latitude of acceptance, that is, all the acceptable positions on an attitude continuum. Similarly, a latitude of rejection consists of all the unacceptable positions.

in collecting data reported herein. We also acknowledge the help of Jane Goodman in providing psycholinguistic analyses of protocol data reported herein.

No abstract

Gumenik & Glass (1970) claimed to have shown a reversed form of Stroop interference in which implicit naming responses to irrelevant colors delayed the reading of color words combined with the colors. In their study, a legibility reduction that did not affect color visibility was interpreted as increasing this interference from color naming to the "weakened" reading response. However, their results could have been only the result of lower legibility for the colored words compared to the control black words. Tbe legibility reduction would be expected to increase any initial legibility difference between colored and black words. In the present study, a neutral word condition and a reduced legibility control condition were included, and evidence was obtained for a bona fide "reversed interference" that was not the result of legibility differences or naming practice. The results were discussed in terms of a symmetrical failure of selective attention to focus on either the color or word analyzer.In the Stroop color-word test (Stroop, 1935), the time to name colors is delayed when the color patches are shaped to speIl incongruent color names. Since the words interfere with naming of the colors on this interference card, it is logical to expect that word reading would be delayed if the word were to become the relevant aspect and the color the irrelevant aspect of these "dual" stimuli. Stroop himself explored the effect of irrelevant colors on reading color names but found that such word reading was delayed only 6% in comparison to reading of the same color names from a card on which they were printed in black. This delay is sufficiently small that it could result from reduced word legibili ty because of the reduced luminance con trast of the colored words against their white background and/or from blurring of different colors resulting from the chromatic aberration of the eye. Stroop did show that a great amount of color-naming practice caused interference to word reading when words were read on the interference card immediately following this practice. TIme for such reading was nearly twice that required for reading words on the card where they were printed in black, indicating a substantial increase in interference relative to the earlier 6% increment. However, on a second trial, times to read words on the interference card were almost back to normal. Tbis illustrates the relative weakness and perhaps artifactual nature of this "reversed Stroop interference" compared to the interference of irrelevant words to color naming,