In this study, participants were presented with two tasks: the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and a mock trial task. In both tasks, the auditory stimuli were produced by native or foreign-accented speakers, and presented either free of noise or mixed with background white noise, to estimate the role of processing fluency on jurors’ appraisals. In the IAT, participants showed positive implicit biases toward native speech, and negative implicit biases toward foreign-accented speech. In the mock trial task, participants gave much harsher sentences to the foreign-accented than native defendant, but only when defendants’ statements were free of noise. Moreover, we found that participants’ implicit biases were a relevant predictor of the sentences they gave to the defendants. Our results suggest that categorization/stereotyping is the main mechanism responsible for the effect of defendants’ accents on jurors’ appraisals, and that members of an estimated group who violate social norms are punished more severely.

在这项研究中，参与者面临两项任务：内隐联想测试 (IAT) 和模拟试验任务。在这两项任务中，听觉刺激由母语或外国口音的人产生，并且在没有噪音或与背景白噪音混合的情况下呈现，以估计处理流畅性对陪审员评估的作用。在 IAT 中，参与者对母语言语表现出积极的内隐偏见，对外国口音的言语表现出消极的内隐偏见。在模拟审判任务中，参与者对外国口音的被告的判决比本土被告要严厉得多，但前提是被告的陈述没有噪音。此外，我们发现参与者的隐性偏见是他们对被告判刑的相关预测因素。