The impact of computer generated animations on juror decision making.

The modern court is changing and part of this development is a result of the increased use of technology. In particular, the use of multimedia applications have enabled legal teams to present evidence in new and novel ways; however, animations and computer generated exhibits (CGE) have recently been the subject of debate over their potential to unduly influence court decisions. A growing body of empirical studies in this area suggests that major differences in trial outcome could result from the inclusion of animation evidence. Subtle changes to the style and format of CGEs can be problematic and produce disparate outcomes in experimental studies. This paper reviews some of the leading research and commentary in the field of electronic court evidence, with an emphasis on juror decision making. Specifically, it outlines the way in which decision making errors (for example, the hindsight bias) are unduly influenced by animation evidence and the way in which CGEs can initiate features of jury decision models (e.g. the ‘critical event’ in Stochastic Processing). The use of CGE in recent cases will be discussed along with suggestions for potential policy implications and avenues of future research.