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The Effect of Listenability Factors on the Comprehension of Police Cautions

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

We examined the extent to which modifying a police caution using three listenability factors (Instructions, Listing, and Explanations) improved comprehension. A 2 (Instructions vs. No Instructions) × 2 (Listing vs. No Listing) × 2 (Explanations vs. No Explanations) between-participants design was used. Participants (N = 160) were presented verbally with one of eight cautions and asked to record their understanding of the legal rights contained in the caution. Results showed a main effect of Explanations, thus suggesting that repeating the information contained in the caution in different terms increased comprehension. Partial support was also found for the hypothesized additive interactions of modifications, as the caution containing all three modifications resulted in the highest level of comprehension. The implications of these findings for the comprehension of police cautions, and verbally delivered information in general, are discussed.

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Notes

  1. We realize that the term “listenable” or “listenability” can have several meanings apart from the one that is adopted in the current paper (e.g., pleasant to listen to). To clarify, we are using the term as understood and defined by researchers such as Donald Rubin and his colleagues. That is, messages are listenable based on the degree to which they contain features of prototypical “oral-based” and “considerate” text (see Rubin, 1993).

  2. We chose to use a created caution over a police caution currently in use for two interrelated reasons. Firstly, the creation of police cautions in Canada lacks standardization. In other words, they are created by each agencies’ legal department based on their interpretation of Canadian case law and can be modified as needed. It is therefore possible that any Canadian police agency could opt to use the Created caution used in this paper. Secondly, the ultimate goal of this line of research is to produce a highly comprehensible caution. We reasoned that the application of the listenability modifications to this caution would provide the best opportunity to achieve that goal as it, unlike all other Canadian legal counsel cautions, meets all of readability criteria for a comprehensible caution set out by Rogers and his colleagues (2007, 2008).

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Acknowledgments

Support for the research reported in this paper was provided to the both authors by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We would like to thank Vanessa Strong, Ashley Williams, and Sarah MacDonald for their assistance in completing this research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Science Building, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

    Joseph Eastwood & Brent Snook

Authors
  1. Joseph Eastwood
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  2. Brent Snook
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brent Snook.

Appendix

Appendix

Base Legal Counsel Caution

You have the right to hire and talk to your own lawyer right away. You have the right to free legal advice from a government lawyer right away. If you want this free advice I will give you the number to call. If you are charged with a crime you can apply for a free lawyer to help with your case.

Instructions

I am going to read you the police caution. The police caution describes the rights that you have when being interviewed by the police. I want you to listen carefully to the caution as I am reading it and think about the information that you hear. This is important, as I will ask you to tell me what the caution means when I finish reading it. I will start reading the caution now.

Listing

You have four rights that you need to know about:

First, you have the right to hire and talk to your own lawyer right away.

Second, you have the right to free legal advice from a government lawyer right away.

Third, if you want this free legal advice, I will give you a telephone number to call.

Fourth, if you are charged with a crime, you can apply for a free lawyer to help with your case.

Explanations

You have the right to hire and talk to your own lawyer right away. This means that you can hire and talk to any lawyer you want before I ask you any more questions.

You have the right to free legal advice from a government lawyer right away. This means that you can talk to a free lawyer and get free legal advice before I ask you any more questions.

If you want this free legal advice, I will give you a telephone number to call. This means that you can get a phone number from me that will let you call for the free legal advice I just mentioned.

If you are charged with a crime, you can apply for a free lawyer to help with your case. This means that if you do end up being charged with a crime, you can apply to get a lawyer to help you for free.

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Eastwood, J., Snook, B. The Effect of Listenability Factors on the Comprehension of Police Cautions. Law Hum Behav (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-011-9275-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-011-9275-3

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