The ecological validity of jury simulations: Is the jury still out?

Despite the need to assess the ecological validity of jury simulation resea rch before generalizing from simulations to the behavior of real jurors, su rprisingly little jury reseal-ch has directly addressed issues of validity. The present paper reviews the extant research on two aspects of the validi ty question-specifically, research that has compared different samples of m ock jurors, and research that has manipulated the medium of trial presentat ion. In addition jury simulation research published in the first 20 years o f Law and Human Behavior is analyzed with respect to these variables. The m ajority of simulations used student-jurors and presented the trial in writt en form. Additionally, the methodology of simulation research has actually become less realistic over time. However this trend is not necessarily caus e for concern, as a review of the literature reveals little research that h as obtained differences between different mock juror samples or different t rial media.