Rory MacLean

Are consistent juror decisions related to fast and frugal decision making? Investigating the relationship between juror consistency, decision speed and cue utilisation.

The aim of this study was to establish whether more consistent/accurate juror decision making is related to faster decision-making processes which use fewer cues – that is, fast and frugal heuristic processes. A correlational design was implemented with the co-variables: consistency of verdict decisions (participant decisions compared to the actual court verdicts), decision speed, and cue utilisation (the number of cues used to make a final verdict decision). Sixty participants read information about six murder trials which were based on real cases and whose outcome verdicts were deemed to be correct by the Scottish legal institution. Three of the cases had been handed down ‘not guilty’ verdicts, and three had been handed down ‘guilty’ verdicts. Participants read opening statements and were then presented with a block of prosecution evidence, followed by a block of defence evidence. They were then asked to make a final verdict. All three co-variables were significantly related. Cue utilisation and speed were positively correlated, as would be expected. Consistency was negatively and significantly related to both speed and cue utilisation. Partial correlations highlighted that cue utilisation was the only variable to have a significant relationship with consistency, and that the relationship between speed and consistency was a by-product of how frugal the juror was. Findings support the concept of frugal decisional processes being optimal within a juror context. The more frugal a decision is, the more likely jurors are to be to be accurate/consistent.

Decision Science: A New Hope

Decision science is an area of enquiry that crosses many disciplines, from psychology to economics, each with their own perspective of decision-making. Traditionally, mathematicians have envisaged decision-making as a purely rational endeavor, whereas psychologists and behavioral economists have critiqued this narrative and suggested that cognitive short cuts are the real mechanisms behind how decisions are made. However, contemporary dual process theorists argue that two systems of the mind exist: system 1 (intuitive decision-making) and system 2 (rational decision-making). The current review will present a relatively new metaphor for decision-making: the unified threshold model. This model is a global approach to decision-making which allows both intuitive and rational decision-making processes to be explained in a more flexible manner than the dual process model. This review will introduce the reader to different types of threshold models (counter and diffusion), their assumptions, and their ability to explain decision-making behavior. Implications and future research will also be discussed. In summary, the aim of this review is to highlight that a rather than the unified threshold model of decision-making may give a more adequate explanation of decision-making data in comparison to previous models and theories.

Faith in thy threshold

The current study focussed on the decision-making processes of jurors. The study investigated how jurors make a decision, if they integrate information within their decision-making process and if cue utilisation thresholds promote confirmation bias. To do this, 108 participants listened to one of nine cases. These participants were asked to give a likelihood of guilt rating after each piece of evidence, to state what the last piece of information was that they needed to make a decision and to give a final verdict at the end of a trial. The results highlighted that threshold decision making was being utilised, that information integration may allow thresholds to be reached and that thresholds may promote confirmation bias to reduce cognitive dissonance. In conclusion, this suggests that jurors integrate information until they reach a leading verdict, then the evaluation of information is distorted to support the leading threshold. Implications relate to legal instructions for jurors.

Can laboratory based research regarding type 1 diabetes and exercise be applied into the real-life environment?

The aim of this study was to determine whether results from laboratory based research examining glycaemic control during and after exercise can be applied to a real‐life (non‐laboratory) environment.

The design and evaluation of a self-management algorithm for people with type 1 diabetes performing moderate intensity exercise

Limited evidence is available to advise people with type 1 diabetes about self‐management strategies for maintaining acceptable glycaemic control when exercising.

Delayed hypoglycaemia in people with type 1 diabetes after performing moderate intensity exercise before the evening meal

For a person with type 1 diabetes, participation in exercise may increase the risk of hypoglycaemia. Research has been performed during or immediately after exercise in a laboratory environment, with limited evidence regarding strategies for post‐exercise hypoglycaemia prevention.

Visual-spatial-motor integration in a cross-section of primary-aged children: implications for assessing risk of Dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a common condition characterized by difficulties with reading and writing despite adequate intelligence, education and motivation. Many individuals with dyslexia also have problems integrating visual information over space and time, and /or motor control: however, whether sensory and motor deficits underlie phonological difficulties in dyslexia, or merely co-exist with them, remains a topic of debate. We used a novel, computer-based “dot-to-dot” (DtD) task to explore visual-motor integration in 253 children (aged 4 – 10 yrs, m=5.69; 114 females) from three primary schools in Edinburgh, UK, and its relationship with phonological and cognitive skills known to be compromised in dyslexia. We found that: (1) DtD accuracy was significantly correlated with phonological processing, rapid automatized naming (RAN) and digit span (arguably the best predictors of dyslexia); (2) DtD accuracy was a predictive variable of phonological processing adding14% of the variance to the model, (3) children deemed at “high” risk of dyslexia according to existing screening tools (e.g. LUCID-Rapid) performed significantly less accurately than those deemed at “low” risk. Follow-up testing of the youngest, pre-reading children will indicate whether or not poor visual-motor integration performance predicts later reading problems.