Although Van Dijk and Kintsch's model of text comprehension has been shown to be an effective theory for describing many findings with academic implications, their model has far reaching potential beyond the classroom - perhaps into the courtroom. At the end of a criminal trial, jurors are provided with a set of instructions regarding how they should apply relevant law to the present case. Unfortunately, most current juror instructions are very difficult to comprehend. Though linguistically based simplifications of these instructions have improved comprehension for jury-eligible adults, comprehension remains quite poor resulting in jurors basing decisions on stereotypes and biases rather than the law. The present essay reviews some of the research that has been conducted on improving juror comprehension, the effectiveness of some of these attempts, and makes an argument for utilizing Van Dijk and Kintsch's situation model as a vehicle for additional improvement in juror instructions and hence juror comprehension.

Research concludes that after receiving sentencing phase instructions in capital cases, mock jurors do not understand aggravating and mitigating factors, and the behaviors or circumstances that contribute to each (e.g., Smith & Haney, 2011). Through utilization of a real murder trial transcript, the present study examines the effects of the simplicity (standard or simplified) and timing of the sentencing phase instructions (before or after sentencing phase testimony) on mock jurors' understanding of such factors. Thematic analysis of open-ended responses to survey questions also explores the nature of mock jurors' (mis)understanding. Results indicate that there is a relationship between type of instructions given and participants' understanding of both aggravating and mitigating factors. Simplified instructions resulted in better, but still poor, understanding. However, no statistically significant relationships are found between instruction timing and participants' understanding of aggravating or mitigating factors. Open-ended responses reveal ways in which participants erroneously define aggravating and mitigating factors, which could aid policy makers in the rewriting of sentencing phase instructions.

Much research has investigated improving the effectiveness and fairness of the judicial system. One of the variables that has received attention regarding this is juror comprehension of sentencing instructions. This study utilized a transcript, modified from an actual murder and sexual battery trial transcript, to investigate the effects of timing of the sentencing instructions (before or after penalty phase testimony), simplicity of the instructions (standard or simplified), and race of the defendant (Caucasian or African American) on the overall sentencing outcomes for defendants. Overall, results showed that defendant race was not a significant predictor of the guilt decision for either capital murder or sexual battery. No relationship was found between defendant race and the decision to render a death sentence rather than life in prison without parole (LWOP). When the defendant was presented as Caucasian, the type of instruction (standard or simplified) was unrelated to sentence, but when the defendant was presented as African American the relationship between type of instruction and sentence was marginally significant. Similarities to, and differences from, results of previous research are addressed.

An extensive amount of social science research has been conducted on issues related to the criminal justice system. From the moment a crime is witnessed until a verdict and sentence have been rendered there exists opportunity for the human cognitive system to distort and misinterpret data about a crime, about the suspect, and about the process itself. The research presented here describes, in easy to understand terms, some of the empirical research that points out disadvantages minorities face within the system, differences in the way in which trial information is received and evaluated, and provides a framework that may potentially lend itself to methods for mitigating these disadvantages and individual differences.

Through 2014 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data for all 50 U.S. states, this research explores the relationship between decriminalization and recreational and medical marijuana legalization and crime rates and arrests for drug abuse violations. When comparing states that changed their marijuana laws between 2010 and 2014 to states without any change, results indicate that any decrease in crime rate was not dependent upon changes in laws. Results indicate that while the trend is for property and violent crime rates to be higher in states where marijuana remains illegal, the difference is not statistically significant. When comparing states where marijuana has been decriminalized and states where medical marijuana has been legalized to states where it has not, the trend is that property and violent crime rates appear to be lower in both decriminalized and medically legalized states, but the difference is not statistically significant. Analysis also reveals that there are no significant differences in 2014 crime rates based on the degree to which the state has legalized/decriminalized marijuana (completely illegal, decriminalized or medically legal, decriminalized and medically legal). Even when controlling for factors that may lead to crime, the legal status of marijuana in states failed to significantly predict property or violent crime rates in 2014. States may turn to this research when considering their marijuana laws.

A defendantu0027s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial often comes in conflict with the publicu0027s First Amendment right to free speech. While media seek to inform the public about critical events in their communities, this may make it difficult to identify a venue of truly unbiased jurors. The clash between these two fundamental rights is particularly salient with regards to pre-trial publicity (PTP). PTP, which can be defined as occurring local media, online postings, blogs, and press releases disseminate information about a crime or the parties involved that is inflammatory, biased, emotion-laden, or factually erroneous (Greene u0026 Heilbrun, 2014, p. 286), allows for the greater community to scrutinize both fact-and fiction of an unresolved case and speculate about the guilt of a not yet convicted defendant. In 2014, Americans claimed to have obtained their news using an average of four types of media (americanpressinstitute.org) and their tendency to gravitate toward negative information has changed little over the last two decades (Robinson, 2007). The information provided to the public via PTP may be incomplete or misleading, yet ubiquitous and often evocative. As such, the effects of PTP can be damaging and far-reaching (e.g., Daftary-Kapur, Penrod, Ou0027Connor, u0026 Wallace, 2014; Kramer, Kerr, u0026 Carroll, 1990; Otto, Penrod, u0026 Dexter, 1994). This is especially troubling because even though jurors are questioned concerning their knowledge about the crime, it is possible and even likely that jurors will have been biased due to the PTP. They may be unaware of the bias or falsely believe they can still be impartial (Kramer, Kerr, u0026 Carroll, 1990). It has even been shown that exposure to PTP about an unrelated case with similar evidence can impact juror decisions (Greene u0026 Loftus, 1984). Negative information, and subsequently negative PTP, can be extremely damaging. Research has consistently demonstrated that is stronger than good and that there is a widespread existence of a positive-negative imbalance (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, u0026 Vohs, 2001). There are a number of areas within the psychological literature that have reinforced the existence of this imbalance. For example, Kahneman and Tversky (1984) found that we react more strongly to negative events (e.g., losing money) and they have a longer lasting effect on us than positive events (e.g., finding an equal amount of money); within our close relationships positive communication does not outweigh some negative communication (Gottman u0026 Krokoff, 1989); and the English language has more negative than positive descriptive words (Averill, 1980). It has additionally been found that people tend to process information more deeply when they are in a bad mood and negative traits have a greater impact in impression formation, likeability, and the likelihood that someone will be viewed as truthful (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, u0026 Vohs, 2001). In addition, negative information will receive more attention and lead to a stronger memory trace than will positive information (e.g., Pratto u0026 John, 1991). Due to the vast literature on the effects of negative information, it is unsurprising that most of the research on PTP has been overwhelmingly negative, pro-prosecution, and anti-defendant (Daftary-Kapur, Penrod, Ou0027Connor, u0026 Wallace, 2014; But see Ruva, Guenther, u0026 Yarbrough, 2011, for an exception). Otto, Penrod, and Dexter (1994) found that negative PTP regarding the defendantu0027s character significantly impacted mock jurorsu0027 pre-trial ratings of guilt. While they found that the presentation of trial evidence reduced the impact this sort of PTP had on guilt ratings, it was not entirely eliminated. In contrast, trial evidence eliminated the effects of other types of negative PTP (e.g., a report of a prior police record). All PTP is not equal, however. Additional research on PTP has demonstrated that exposure to especially emotional PTP produces more likely to convict decisions among mock jurors than without it (Kramer, Kerr ,u0026 Carroll, 1990), and memory for affective, but not factual, PTP correlated with anti-defendant attitudes and greater confidence regarding the defendantu0027s guilt (Honess, Charman, u0026 Levi, 2003). …

Pre-trial publicity may interfere with a defendant's Sixth Amendment right by producing bias in jury decisions. As such, it has been the focus of a plethora of experimental studies. The present research investigated the role of positive and negative pre-trial publicity containing information about the defendant's character. Participants viewed a photograph of a white businessman and read one of three sets of fictitious newspaper articles accusing him of murdering his wife. They then rated the defendant's guilt and recalled what they could about the trial. In the first study, negative pre-trial publicity about the defendant's character (e.g., greedy) was shown to increase ratings of guilt and to be associated with increased perceived guilt for an unrelated crime. Positive pre-trial publicity (e.g., generous) did not decrease ratings of guilt when compared to a neutral, crime-irrelevant condition. Negative factual information was recalled more often than positive information, and recall was greater in the negative pre-trial publicity condition. In a second study, the photograph of the defendant was of an African American businessman. In that study, positive pre-trial publicity was shown to decrease ratings of guilt beyond that of the control condition. Negative facts were no more likely to be recalled than positive facts, and recall in the negative pre-trial condition was only marginally greater than in the positive pre-trial publicity condition. Differences in findings for the two races are interpreted with respect to aversive racism, stereotypes, and disfluency.

The botched execution of Oklahoma's Clayton Lockett on April 29, 2014 is one of the latest in a series of unfortunate events that has led some to question the legitimate implementation of the death penalty. During this execution attempt, Mr. Lockett's lethal injection failed to effectively end his life and instead he died of a heart attack nearly 45 minutes after the initiation of the execution. Then in May of 2014, Delaware's longest death row resident, Jermaine Wright, became eligible for a new trial after 23 years in prison. Mr. Wright had been found guilty of murdering a liquor store clerk during a robbery. The judge that overruled his conviction cited the fact that Jermaine had been high on heroin when he gave his confession and there was specific evidence about a similar, close-by, robbery and jailhouse informant that was withheld by the prosecutor (O'Sullivan, 2014). Mr. Wright has since been set free. According to the Innocence Project (www.innocenceproject.org), 18 of the more than 300 people who have been exonerated due to DNA evidence spent at least some time on death row. Additionally, Black prisoners comprise more than a third of the prison population and more than a third of all executions despite being only about 12% of the population (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2012). Based on these inequities and statistics, the necessity of rethinking the death penalty becomes evident. One argument in support of the death penalty rests on predictions of future dangerousness. However, some researchers have questioned the relative dangerousness of different categories of inmates and have suggested that the death penalty may be obsolete (Cunningham, Reidy, & Sorensen, 2005). Their analysis of Missouri prison incident records showed that when prisoners who were sentenced to death were integrated into the general prison population, they were no more likely to be involved in homicide attempts or other violent incidents than their non-life sentence counterparts and, thus, pose no greater threat to other institutional persons. As more information and data-based analyses about wrongful convictions surfaces, the study of changing public attitudes towards the death penalty warrants investigation. Support for the death penalty reached a high of between 70% and 75% during the early 1990s after a period of lower support, especially during the early 1960s (Ellsworth & Gross, 1994). Despite the fact that support for the death penalty continues to decline, more than half of American adults continue to endorse it based on recent national survey data statistics (Pew, 2014). Since the death penalty is the ultimate punishment, and cannot be undone, the second Marshall Hypothesis specifies that it is important that citizens are knowledgeable about the processes involved, the effectiveness of it as a deterrent to crime, and the possible erroneous outcomes of capital punishment. This hypothesis additionally specifies that a knowledgeable populace would fail to support such a practice. A review of existing scholarly literature on the Marshall Hypotheses, a descriptive analysis of research studies that have been conducted on changing attitudes towards the death penalty, as well as the different forms of media that have been implemented to effect such changes will be presented. The current analysis is viewed from the perspective of the role of emotion and Petty and Cacioppo's (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model. Then, two studies designed to test the role of need for cognition, emotional content, and visual media on attitude change are presented. The Marshall Hypothesis Amidst declining public support for the death penalty and acknowledgment of its arbitrary application, the Supreme Court decided in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that capital punishment was unconstitutional. Although there was little agreement among the 5 majority justices concerning the reasons they found the penalty to be unconstitutional, the fact that it was applied in a capricious and seemingly subjective manner seemed to strike a chord with all of them. …

Readers routinely draw inferences with remarkable efficiency and seemingly little cognitive effort. The present study was designed to explore different types of inferences during the course of reading, and the potential effects of differing levels of working memory capacity on the likelihood that inferences would be made. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from five scalp sites while participants read 90 paragraphs, composed of 60 experimental paragraphs and 30 filler paragraphs. Each experimental paragraph was four sentences long, and the final sentence stated explicitly the inference that readers did or did not make. There were four types of experimental paragraphs: (1) Bridging inference, (2) Elaborative inference, (3) Word-Based Priming control, and (4) No Inference control. Participants were tested using the Daneman and Carpenter (1980) Reading Span Task and categorized as having low or high working memory capacity. The average peaks of the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (EM) were used as a measure of semantic priming and integration, such that the lower the N400 was in response to the explicitly stated inference concept, the more likely it was that the reader made the inference. Results indicate that readers with high working memory capacity made both bridging (necessary) and elaborative (optional) inferences during reading, whereas readers with low working memory capacity made only bridging inferences during reading. We interpret the findings within the framework of the Capacity Constrained Comprehension model of Just and Carpenter (1992).

Past research has shown a tendency for readers who are given multiple perspectives on a domain to excel in solving problems with material from that domain. Mannes (1994) hypothesized the reinstatement-and-integration strategy as a possible processing account of these findings. According to this strategy, when a reader encounters a topic that has been learned about previously, the proposition representing that concept becomes activated in memory, as do propositions representing some information about the original learning context in which it was encountered. When the original and current contexts differ, relational processing takes place, affording the reader a more interconnected memory representation of the domain under study. In this article, three experiments are reported that provide on-line evidence for the reinstatement-and-integration strategy. Subjects read a target text at a self-determined rate after studying an outline that either did or did not conform to the perspective of the target text. Those readers for whom the text and outline presented multiple perspectives took longer than did readers for whom the experimental materials presented a single perspective. A process explanation in terms of the reinstatement-and-integration strategy is presented.

Contents: Preface. P.G. Polson, Walter Kintsch: A Brief Biography. C.A. Perfetti, M.A. Britt, Where Do Propositions Come From? W.K. Estes, A General Model of Classification and Memory Applied to Discourse Processing. B.B. Murdock, Primacy and Recency in the Chunking Model. J.G. Greeno, Understanding Concepts in Activity. G. McKoon, R. Ratcliff, The Minimalist Hypothesis: Directions for Research. A.C. Graesser, R.A. Zwaan, Inference Generation and the Construction of Situation Models. M.A. Gernsbacher, Activating Knowledge of Fictional Characters' Emotional States. M.A. McDaniel, D. Blischak, G.O. Einstein, Understanding the Special Mnemonic Characteristics of Fairy Tales. C.A. Weaver, III, D.S. Bryant, K.D. Burns, Comprehension Monitoring: Extensions of the Kintsch and van Dijk Model. C.R. Fletcher, E.J. Arthur, R.C. Skeate, Top-Down Effects in a Bottom-Up Model of Narrative Comprehension and Recall. I. Tapiero, G. Denhiere, Simulating Recall and Recognition by Using Kintsch's Construction-Integration Model. J.M. Keenan, T.M. Jennings, Priming of Inference Concepts in the Construction-Integration Model. W. Schoenpflug, K.B. Esser, Memory and Its Graeculi: Metamemory and Control in Extended Memory Systems. F. Schmalhofer, The Acquisition of Knowledge from Text and Example Situations: An Extension to the Construction-Integration Model. F.C. Staub, K. Reusser, The Role of Presentational Structures in Understanding and Solving Mathematical Word Problems. S. Mannes, S. Doane, Beyond Discourse: Applications of the Construction-Integration Model. S.R. Goldman, S. Varma, CAPping the Construction-Integration Model of Discourse Comprehension. J.F. Arocha, V.L. Patel, Construction-Integration Theory and Clinical Reasoning. T.A. van Dijk, On Macrostructures, Mental Models, and Other Inventions: A Brief Personal History of the Kintsch-van Dijk Theory. S. Mannes, Epilogue.

Schemas for a subject domain can make reading new information about that domain easier. It was hypothesized that when students read about familiar topics, they use a reinstatement-and-integration strategy in which the familiar knowledge they encounter is retrieved from long-term memory, along with some information about the original context in which those facts were learned. Two experiments that focused on the integration of knowledge from different sources were conducted to investigate whether readers use such a strategy when reading expository text about recently learned topics. The proposed strategy is consistent with much of the observed data.

Previous research on the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) has dealt primarily with measuring the degree of expectancy on the part of the reader as a result of the context within a sentence. Research has shown that when the final word in a sentence is unexpected or incoherent, a greater N400 amplitude is elicited than if the final word is expected or coherent within the context of the sentence. The present study investigated whether the N400 component is sensitive to global, as well as local, semantic expectancy. Global coherence refers to the ease with which subjects can relate the current proposition they are reading with theme-related ideas. In the present study, the effect of global coherence on event-related brain potentials was tested using four titled and untitled paragraphs (Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Dooling & Lachman, 1971), presented one word at a time. These paragraphs are noncoherent, and are made coherent only with the presentation of a title. The EEG was recorded in response to every word in all four paragraphs. We found an increase in N400 amplitude in response to the words in the Untitled paragraphs relative to the Titled paragraphs, indicating that global coherence does affect the N400. In addition, subjects in the Titled group showed an enhanced P1-N1 component relative to the Untitled group suggesting that the presence of global coherence allows greater attention to be allocated to early visual processing of words.

We review our efforts to model user command production in an attempt to characterize the knowledge users of computers have at various stages of learning. We modeled computer users with a system called NETWORK (Mannes and Kintsch, 1988; 1991) and modeled novice, intermediate, and expert UNIX command production data collected by Doane et al. (1990b) with a system called UNICOM (Doane et al., 1989a; 1991). We use the construction-integration theory of comprehension proposed by Kintsch (1988) as a framework for our analyses. By focusing on how instructions activate the knowledge rele/ant to the performance of the specified task, we have successfully modeled major aspects of correct user performance by incorporating in the model knowledge about individual commands and knowledge that allows the correct combination of elementary commands into complex, novel commands. Thus, experts can be modeled in both NETWORK and in UNICOM. We further show that salient aspects of novice and intermediate performance can be described by removing critical elements of knowledge from the expert UNICOM model. Results suggest that our comprehension-based approach has promise for understanding user interactions and implications for system design are discussed.

For many years researchers have attempted to model human behavior in familiar situations using the notions of schemata and script representations. Much psychological data exists to support the notion that humans use script or schema-like representations in their interactions with the world. Purely symbolic models and purely connectionist models each have difficulty accounting for both the contents and sequentially of scripts. We describe a hybrid model that allows us to model scriptal behavior according to four criteria which we propose. It is shown how the model deals effectively with traditional and non-traditional AI problems which lend themselves to scriptal representations. This is followed by a review of several of the approaches that have been proposed to account for human behavior regarding scripts and schemata, and how they fare with respect to the four criteria. Following this, the benefits of each component of our hybrid model are described.