Biomedical subjects

G Daniel Lassiter

Publications and source records attributed to G Daniel Lassiter.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Camera perspective bias in videotaped confessions: experimental evidence of its perceptual basis.

The camera perspective from which a criminal confession is videotaped influences later assessments of its voluntariness and the suspect's guilt. Previous research has suggested that this camera perspective bias is rooted in perceptual rather than conceptual processes, but these data are strictly correlational. In 3 experiments, the authors directly manipulated perceptual processing to provide stronger evidence of its mediational role. Prior to viewing a videotape of a simulated confession, participants were shown a photograph of the confessor's apparent victim. Participants in a perceptual interference condition were instructed to visualize the image of the victim in their minds while viewing the videotape; participants in a conceptual interference condition were instructed instead to rehearse an 8-digit number. Because mental imagery and actual perception draw on the same available resources, the authors anticipated that the former, but not the latter, interference task would disrupt the camera perspective bias, if indeed it were perceptually mediated. Results supported this conclusion.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Gender differences in attitudes toward gay men and lesbians: the role of motivation to respond without prejudice.

Research has uncovered consistent gender differences in attitudes toward gay men, with women expressing less prejudice than men (Herek, 2003). Attitudes toward lesbians generally show a similar pattern, but to a weaker extent. The present work demonstrated that motivation to respond without prejudice importantly contributes to these divergent attitudes. Study 1 revealed that women evince higher internal motivation to respond without prejudice (IMS, Plant & Devine, 1998) than do men and that this difference partially mediates the relationship between gender and attitudes toward gay men. The second study replicated this finding and demonstrated that IMS mediates the relationship between gender and attitudes toward lesbians. Study 2 further revealed that gender-role variables contribute to the observed gender differences in motivation to respond without prejudice. These findings provide new insights into the nature of sexual prejudice and for the first time point to possible antecedents of variation in motivation to respond without prejudice.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Videotaped interrogations and confessions: a simple change in camera perspective alters verdicts in simulated trials.

Prior research has indicated that altering the perspective from which a videotaped confession is recorded influences assessments of the confession's voluntariness. The authors examined whether this camera perspective bias persists in more ecologically valid contexts. In Study 1, neither a realistic videotaped trial simulation nor potentially corrective judicial instruction was sufficient to mitigate the prejudicial effect of camera perspective on mock jurors' assessments of voluntariness or on their all-important final verdicts. Study 2 suggests that perhaps the best camera perspective to use is one that focuses trial fact finders' attention on the interrogator, as this particular vantage point may facilitate decision makers' capacity to detect coercive influences, which in turn could, in some cases, improve assessments of the confession's reliability.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Illusory causation: why it occurs.

Considerable evidence indicates that people overattribute causality to a given stimulus when it is salient or the focus of their attention--the so-called illusory-causation phenomenon. Although illusory causation has proved to be quite robust and generalizable, a compelling explanation for it has not been empirically documented. Four social-attribution studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that illusory causation occurs because salient information is initially registered, or perceptually organized, differently than nonsalient information. The results provide considerable support for the notion that people's literal point of view affects how they initially perceive, or extract, information from an observed interaction, which in turn affects their judgments regarding the causal influence exerted by each interactant.

Adult↗