Jurors’ emotional state, attentional focus, and judicial judgment in a criminal court

Catherine Esnard (1) , Nicolas Vibert (1)

1 CeRCA [Poitiers] - Centre de recherches sur la cognition et l'apprentissage [UMR 7295]

In order to consider the relevant relationships between emotion, information processing and judicial judgment, this study evaluated the impact of positive (amusement), negative (sadness) or neutral mood induction on 128 mock jurors' visual attentional focus, as measured by their eye fixations on the face of a witness filmed while giving testimony in a criminal court. Participants then rated their perceptions of the witness's and their own emotions on the Differential Emotional Scale, before indicating their final judicial judgment. As expected, results showed that sadness can favor information processing in a in more effortful mode, with more steady visual attention, while a positive emotional state such as amusement can favor information processing based more on the witness's emotions, a source of useful clues for establishing the judicial judgment. These results are discussed in relation to how the cognitive approach can shed light on the processes underlying judicial judgment.

Mots clés: emotional state; emotional facial expression; visual attention; judicial judgment

Domaines: Psychologie

Catherine Esnard, Nicolas Vibert. Jurors’ emotional state, attentional focus, and judicial judgment in a criminal court. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2021, 33 (4), pp.439-452. ⟨10.1080/20445911.2021.1923723⟩. ⟨hal-03433495⟩