Virtual Reality In Legal Psychology Research: Advancing Jury Similation Research Methodology

Abstract

Jury simulation research methodology is often criticized for lacking sufficient generalizability to impact legal proceedings. The implementation of Virtual Reality (VR) technology would benefit the domain of jury simulation research by addressing some of the persistent areas of concern by courts, such as limited ecological validity and generalizability, and by providing insight into the cognition of simulation participants. Other issues include the lack of decisional consequence experienced by simulation participants, and the contrast between the written transcripts often used as experimental stimuli and what is experienced in a real courtroom. If implemented, VR technology would address these issues by providing more realistic stimuli, conveying consequences for the choices made within-simulation by participants, and using dependent measures such as eye tracking and pupillometry. Furthermore, by developing a software application that facilitates the efficient production of virtual environments by researchers with limited technical knowledge, the costs of integrating VR for jury simulation research can be greatly reduced. Overall, when implemented in conjunction with core methodological advancements in the field of jury simulation research, such
as drawing participants from jury pool samples, the use of VR as a tool for jury simulation research would allow for a higher level of ecological validity and generalizability than previously achieved.