My research focuses on applications of basic social and cognitive psychology to various aspects of the law and criminal justice. In particular, my work focuses on three topics:

Some of the research my students and I conduct takes place in our Psycho-legal Laboratory. Located in Miller House, this facility contains a mock courtroom complete with a judge's bench, witness stand, podium, and a seating area for a jury.

Often we stage trials or testimony in this courtroom and record the events with videotape cameras and microphones that are built into the ceiling and walls. This lab is also equipped with a digital camcorder, a polygraph (commonly used as a lie-detector test), a computerized Identi-Kit (face-composite system used to obtain eyewitness sketches), and perception analyzers (wireless hand-held response dials that are used to record subjects' online reactions to trials and other stimulus events).

The facility also contains two jury deliberation rooms and a control room from which these research activities can be observed, recorded, and analyzed via one-way mirrors, video cameras, and a PC equipped with student-friendly statistical software. The jury rooms have also served as interrogation rooms for studies of police confessions.