Giuseppe Rocché, Mental Contamination and Inadmissible Evidence

Cognitive Biases and Adjudication

Giuseppe Rocchè, Mental Contamination and Inadmissible Evidence

This lecture explores systematic distortions in legal decision-making due to our difficulty in deliberately disregarding relevant but inadmissible information. It surveys different reasons to exclude relevant information, and different psychological phenomena connected to the failure of deliberately disregarding, focusing on one of them: mental contamination.

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Mental Contamination and Inadmissible Evidence (1)

1 / 3

What is the interesting result of the rape shield statue experiment?

The conviction rate of judges who excluded the testimony is statistically identical to that of judges who never heard the testimony

The conviction rate of judges who excluded the testimony is lower than that of judges who admitted the testimony

The conviction rate of judges who excluded testimony is statistically similar to that of judges who admitted testimony, and statistically very different from that of judges who never heard testimony.

2 / 3

What kind of exclusionary reasons do we find in the rape shield statute?

Both epistemic and extra-epistemic reasons

Only epistemic reasons

Only extra-epistemic reasons

3 / 3

In an experiment, judges are asked to roll dice before issuing a final decision on a hypothetical case. Which of the following statements is true?

The number indicated by the dice in no way influenced the judges' decision on the hypothetical case

The number indicated by the dice is a case of relevant but inadmissible information

The number indicated by the dice is a case of irrelevant information

Your score is

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Mental Contamination and Inadmissible Evidence (2)

1 / 3

One of the following statements is false. Which one?

In the suicide letter experiment the evaluation of ability is clearly irrelevant from the beginning

In the suicide letter experiment the evaluation of ability is actually relevant

In the suicide letter experiment there is a moment when the evaluation of ability seems to be relevant

2 / 3

One of the following statements is false. Which one?

According to an experiment analysed in the lesson, it is easier to ignore information when epistemic reasons are offered than when extra-epistemic reasons are offered

According to an experiment analysed in the lesson it is easier to ignore information when extra-epistemic reasons are offered than when epistemic reasons are offered

According to an experiment analysed in the lecture there is no difference in the difficulty of ignoring information if the reasons offered are epistemic or extra-epistemic

3 / 3

One of the following statements is false. Which one?

In mental contamination the agent wants to follow the directive and believes she is following it

In mental contamination the agent wants to follow the directive but knows that the more she tries to follow it the more she violates it

In mental contamination the more the agent is asked to follow the directive, the more he loses the motivation to follow it

Your score is

Cognitive Biases and Adjudication

Giuseppe Rocchè, Mental Contamination and Inadmissible Evidence

Lecture Part 1

Part 2

Quiz 1

Quiz 2