When prior knowledge and law collide

Jurors are supposed to rely on the judge's instructions for verdict selection. However, recent research indicates that people have constructed naive representations of crimes that conflict with the judge's instructions and that influence decision making. The present research explored potential solutions to this conflict. Two experiments revealed that the problem cannot be circumvented by avoiding people's prior knowledge; subjects activated and used their prior knowledge of crimes even when the crime name was withheld. Experiment 3 demonstrated that a supplementary instruction to disregard prior knowledge was also ineffective. Experiment 4 revealed that a supplementary instruction designed to revise subjects' existing representations did improve decision accuracy. These experiments indicate that the conflict between people's prior knowledge and the law cannot easily be avoided or disregarded, but its impact can be reduced by revising people's existing concepts.