The eyewitness, the expert psychologist, and the jury.

The admissibility of expert psychological testimony on eyewitness matters is currently in debate. In this research we bring data to bear on some of the critical issues underlying the debate, specifically, jurors' understanding and use of expert testimony. Mock jurors viewed a realistic videotaped trial centered around eyewitness evidence. Several aspects of the evidence and the presence of expert testimony were varied orthogonally. Results showed that the presence of expert testimony improved juror sensitivity to eyewitness evidence. In comparison to jurors who heard no expert testimony, jurors who heart expert testimony gave more weight to witnessing and identification conditions and less weight to witness confidence when evaluating the accuracy of the identification. The expert testimony did not cause jurors to be more skeptical of the eyewitness evidence.