We investigate how the use of bullet comparison algorithms and demonstrative evidence may affect juror perceptions of reliability, credibility, and understanding of expert witnesses and presented evidence. The use of statistical methods in forensic science is motivated by a lack of scientific validity and error rate issues present in many forensic analysis methods. We explore what our study says about how this type of forensic evidence is perceived in the courtroom where individuals unfamiliar with advanced statistical methods are asked to evaluate results in order to assess guilt. In the course of our initial study, we found that individuals overwhelmingly provided high Likert scale ratings in reliability, credibility, and scientificity regardless of experimental condition. This discovery of scale compression - where responses are limited to a few values on a larger scale, despite experimental manipulations - limits statistical modeling but provides opportunities for new experimental manipulations which may improve future studies in this area.

翻译：本研究探讨了子弹比对算法与示范证据的使用如何影响陪审员对专家证人可信度、可靠性及所呈证据的理解。法医学中统计方法的引入，源于许多法医分析方法缺乏科学有效性和误差率问题。我们通过实验考察了此类法医学证据在法庭中的认知效果——法庭上不熟悉高级统计方法的个体需评判分析结果以评估罪责。初步研究发现，无论实验条件如何，受试者在可靠性、可信度及科学性评价中均普遍给出高李克特量表评分。这种量表压缩现象（即尽管存在实验操纵，但受访者的评分仅局限于量表中的少数几个数值）虽然限制了统计建模的可能性，但为未来研究提供了新的实验操纵方向，有望改进该领域的后续研究。