Negative and positive pretrial publicity can affect juror memory and decision making. The study found that negative pretrial publicity doubled the likelihood of a guilty verdict, while positive pretrial publicity decreased the likelihood of a guilty verdict and increased perceptions of the defendant's credibility. Both types of pretrial publicity negatively impacted juror's ability to accurately remember the source of information as coming from either the news article or the courtroom trial. Those in the delayed verdict condition also showed poorer source memory than those who gave an immediate verdict.

1. Negative and Positive Pretrial
Publicity Affect Juror
Memory and Decision Making
Joseph Tinkham
Ruva, C. L., & McEvoy, C. (2008). Negative and positive
pretrial publicity affect juror memory and decision making.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14(3), 226-235.

2. Background
● Past research has found that source memory can be easily
influenced by misinformation
● Also research on the effects of negative PTP on juror
verdicts and ability to discriminate source information
● Past research criticized for not mimicking normal cognitive
strain of a real trial, lasting anywhere from hours to days
● Delay between when information is presented and retrieved
found to increase the number of errors

3. cont.
● This study is thought to be the first to analyze the effects of
positive PTP on juror's memory
● Predicted that positive PTP would have little effect because
of past research on negativity bias (people pay more
attention to negative information)
● Predicted that participants in the negative PTP condition
were more likely to render a guilty verdict and misattribute
source information from news article to court trial
● Also predicted that participants in the delay condition would
have poorer source-memory

4. Method
● N=159 participants (11 drop out)
● Mean age = 19 years old
● Used various Likert Scales to
measure:
○ defendant's guilt
○ source information and
confidence
○ various credibility
characteristics of the
defendant
○ ratings of the attorney

5. Methods cont.
● Randomly assigned to 3 conditions of PTP (news article
content):
○ Positive (Pro-Defendant)
○ Negative (Anti-Defendant)
○ Neutral (Unrelated)
● 5 days after reading, come back to view videotape trial
● give preliminary decision of defendant's guilt
● Randomly assigned to 2 time conditions:
○ Immediate - gave final verdict that session
○ Delay - gave final verdict 2 days later

6. Results
● both positive and negative PTP affects conviction rates of
jurors
● negative PTP was found to double the likelihood of guilty
verdict
● positive PTP decrease likelihood of guilty verdict and
increase defendant's credibility
● both PTP have negative effects on source-memory, thinking
material came from court trial
● Delay condition increase number of source-memory

7. Critique
● Overall Good
Design/measures
● Successfully built on
previous research
● Fitting conclusions
● Applicable to American
culture
● Lacks generalizability
outside American culture
● Question design of neutral
PTP condition

8. Discussion
● Do you think these results would affect the overall group
jurors' decision?
● How would you expected court and publicity culture to
influence results?
○ e.g. Guilty until proven innocent...