New Insights on Expert Opinion About Eyewitness Memory Research.

Experimental psychologists investigating eyewitness memory have periodically gathered their thoughts on a variety of eyewitness memory phenomena. Courts and other stakeholders of eyewitness research rely on the expert opinions reflected in these surveys to make informed decisions. However, the last survey of this sort was published more than 20 years ago, and the science of eyewitness memory has developed since that time. Stakeholders need a current database of expert opinions to make informed decisions. In this article, we provide that update. We surveyed 76 scientists for their opinions on eyewitness memory phenomena. We compared these current expert opinions to expert opinions from the past several decades. We found that experts today share many of the same opinions as experts in the past and have more nuanced thoughts about two issues. Experts in the past endorsed the idea that confidence is weakly related to accuracy, but experts today acknowledge the potential diagnostic value of initial confidence collected from a properly administered lineup. In addition, experts in the past may have favored sequential over simultaneous lineup presentation, but experts today are divided on this issue. We believe this new survey will prove useful to the court and to other stakeholders of eyewitness research.

On informing jurors of potential sanctions.

Two experiments tested (a) whether jurors make assumptions about the potential punishment that would follow from a guilty verdict, (b) whether those assumptions influence jurors' implicit threshold for reasonable doubt, and (c) whether informing jurors of the potential punishment additionally influences their implicit threshold. Experiment 1 manipulated the alleged crime (grand theft vs. manslaughter) holding all other factors constant, and found that mock jurors (n = 102, recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk) had different expectations about the relative punishments but that these expectations did not affect their implicit threshold for reasonable doubt. Experiment 2 manipulated the alleged crime as well as a judicial description of the potential punishment (e.g., term of incarceration of 2-6 vs. 7-20 years). Again, mock jurors (n = 297) were sensitive to the relative punishments, yet their implicit threshold did not differ on this basis. These findings call into question whether jurors should be informed of the potential punishment if the defendant is convicted, an argument advanced by several legal scholars. (PsycINFO Database Record

Linguistic and Cultural Challenges in Communication and Translation in US-Sponsored HIV Prevention Research in Emerging Economies.

Linguistic and cultural differences can impede comprehension among potential research participants during the informed consent process, but how researchers and IRBs respond to these challenges in practice is unclear. We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 researchers, research ethics committee (REC) chairs and members from 8 different countries with emerging economies, involved in HIV-related research sponsored by HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), regarding the ethical and regulatory challenges they face in this regard. In the interviews, problems with translating study materials often arose as major concerns. Four sets of challenges were identified concerning linguistic and cultural translations of informed consent documents and other study materials, related to the: (1) context, (2) process, (3) content and (4) translation of these documents. Host country contextual issues included low literacy rates, education (e.g., documents may need to be written below 5th grade reading level), and experiences with research, and different views of written documentation. Certain terms and concepts may not exist in other languages, or have additional connotations that back translations do not always reveal. Challenges arise because of not only the content of word-for-word, literal translation, but the linguistic form of the language, such as tone (e.g., appropriate forms of politeness vs. legalese, seen as harsh), syntax, manner of questions posed, and the concept of the consent); and the contexts of use affect meaning. Problems also emerged in bilateral communications--US IRBs may misunderstand local practices, or communicate insufficiently the reasons for their decisions to foreign RECs. In sum, these data highlight several challenges that have received little, if any, attention in past literature on translation of informed consent and study materials, and have crucial implications for improving practice, education, research and policy, suggesting several strategies, including needs for broader open-source multilingual lexicons, and more awareness of the complexities involved.

Detecting, preventing, and responding to "fraudsters" in internet research: ethics and tradeoffs.

Internet-based health research is increasing, and often offers financial incentives but fraudulent behavior by participants can result. Specifically, eligible or ineligible individuals may enter the study multiple times and receive undeserved financial compensation. We review past experiences and approaches to this problem and propose several new strategies. Researchers can detect and prevent Internet research fraud in four broad ways: (1) through the questionnaire/instrument (e.g., including certain questions in survey; and software for administering survey); (2) through participants' non-questionnaire data and seeking external validation (e.g., checking data for same email addresses, usernames, passwords, and/or fake addresses or phone numbers; (3) through computer information, (e.g., IP addresses and cookies), and 4) through study design (e.g., avoid lump sum compensation and interviewing participants). These approaches each have pros and cons, and raise ethical, legal, and logistical questions, given that ethical tensions can emerge between preserving the integrity of research vs. protecting the privacy and confidentiality of study respondents. While past discussions concerning the ethics of online research have tended to focus on the participants' ability to trust the researchers, needs now arise to examine researchers' abilities to trust the participants. This analysis has several critical implications for future practice, policy, and research.