Emotional dimensions of visual evidence

Research on the emotional aspects of visual evidence - crime scene photographs, surveillance videos, computer animations, and more - offers clues to the importance and distinctive effects of this increasingly prevalent form of legal proof. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the effects of decision makers’ emotions on their initial perceptions and construals of visual evidence. It then outlines a general model of how emotions can influence legal judgment and uses the model to structure a survey of the effects of visual evidence on decision makers’ anger, disgust, fear, and sympathy and their consequent decisions. It suggests why visual evidence in general might be expected to produce larger emotional effects than nonvisual evidence does. The chapter briefly explains the metacognitive role that the emotional responses elicited by visual evidence can play in the judgment process. The chapter concludes with some methodological observations and suggestions for further research.