... or perceived, it can also distort the estimates of what goes with what, and it can bias the evaluations of cause and effect. In everyday life, errors such as these do not have great importance. However one area where accurate information processing is highly important is in a jury situation. It is the role of a juror to listen to evidence and evaluate the facts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty of the crime with which they have been charged. However, this is an unfamiliar role for most people and authors such as Aronson, Wilson & Arket, (1994) have suggested that when people find themselves in an unfamiliar situation such as this, they may elicit the use of pre-existing schemas and scripts in order to make sense of the situation which they find themselves in. Heuristics such as this are a frequently used common sense ...

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