Abstract

The present research investigated the effects of suspet's demeanor and the type of record medium on the voluntariness judgments. It was suggested that the behavioral and emotional demeanors of the suspect confessing on the video could influence the voluntariness judgment. The suspect who appeared as relatively active in confessing tended to be judged as more voluntary than the same suspect who appeared as relatively passive on the video. In addition, it was also found that the subjects in the audio condition tended to judge the confession as more voluntary and be more confident in their judgments than did the subjects in the video condition. This result implied a possibility that audio-taped confession may also have a potential for bias in voluntariness judgment.