Videotaped interrogations and confessions: A simple change in camera perspective alters verdicts in simulated trials. Manuscript submitted for publication

Prior research has indicated that altering the perspective from which a videotaped confession is recorded influences assessments of the confession’s voluntariness. The authors examined whether this camera perspective bias persists in more ecologically valid contexts. In Study 1, neither a realistic videotaped trial simulation nor potentially corrective judicial instruction was sufficient to mitigate the prejudicial effect of camera perspective on mock jurors ’ assessments of voluntariness or on their all-important final verdicts. Study 2 suggests that perhaps the best camera perspective to use is one that focuses trial fact finders ’ attention on the interrogator, as this particular vantage point may facilitate decision makers’ capacity to detect coercive influences, which in turn could, in some cases, improve assessments of the confession’s reliability. In criminal trials, fact finders (judges and jurors) make decisions based on an evaluation of the evidence presented. The kind of evidence that possibly has the greatest impact on the decision making of these trial fact finders is a defendant’s prior admission of guilt. This view of confessions as highly incriminating is held not only by legal scholars and practitioners but also by the genera