‘The Innocent v the Fickle Few’:  How Psycholinguistics Helps Explain Jurors' Understanding of DNA Evidence as a Random-Match-Probability Following Judges’ Directions.

Date: Wednesday 11 February 2026, 1.00PM - 2.15PM
Location: Maths & Physics Teaching Centre, QUB (map link provided)
Maths & Physics Teaching Centre, QUB (map link provided)
Room G018 in Building 16 on Map. The Centre is in front of the McClay library.
Local Group Meeting
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Second talk in the 2026 Seminar series.

Here are details of our next talk being held on Wednesday, February 11th, at 1pm in QUB (campus map) in the Mathematics & Physics Teaching Centre (Room /0G/018). This is a hybrid event with the speaker and local audience in G/018 and the remote audience online on MS teams (link).
 
DNA evidence is one of the most significant modern advances in the search for truth since the cross examination, but its format as a random-match-probability makes it difficult for people to assign an appropriate probative value. This paper presents two juror research studies to examine the difficulties that jurors have in assigning appropriate probative value to DNA evidence when contradictory evidence is presented. While Frequentist theories propose that the presentation of the match as a frequency rather than a probability facilitates more accurate assessment, Exemplar-Cueing Theory predicts that the subjective weight assigned may be affected by the frequency or probability format, and how easily examples of the event, i.e., 'exemplars', are generated from linguistic cues that frame the match in light of further evidence. Study 1 showed that refuting evidence significantly reduced guilt judgments when exemplars were linguistically cued, even when the probability match and the refuting evidence had the same objective probative value. Moreover, qualitative reason for judgment responses revealed that interpreting refuting evidence was found to be complex and not necessarily reductive; refutation was found indicative of innocence or guilt depending on whether exemplars have been cued or not. Study 2 showed that the introduction of judges' directions to linguistically cue exemplars, did not increase the impact of refuting evidence beyond its objective probative value, but less guilty verdicts were returned when jurors were instructed to consider all possible explanations of the evidence. The results are discussed in light of contradictory frequentist and exemplar-cueing theoretical positions, and their real-world consequences. 


LINK
Cowley M. The Innocent v The Fickle Few': How Jurors Understand Random-Match-Probabilities and Judges' Directions when Reasoning about DNA and Refuting Evidence. J Forensic Sci & Criminal Inves. 2017; 3(1): 555601. DOI: 10.19080/JFSCI.2017.03.555601

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Dr. Michelle Cowley-Cunningham 

Michelle is chartered with the British Psychological Society (research doctorate) and an Associate Fellow of the Psychological Society of Ireland. A founding member of the Psychological Society of Ireland's Special Group in Human Rights & Psychology, a group formed with the express purpose of informing policy makers and the public by sharing psychological research and knowledge in relation to human rights issues, she will today discuss an application of psychology to a key problem for statistics and the law. She is a former member of RSSNI's Local Group Committee.

 
 
Contact Gilbert MacKenzie 

In the event of a link problem close to the time of the talk contact h.mitchell@qub.ac.uk

 
 
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