Effects of Data Visualizations on Jurors’ Judgments

We investigate effects of audit evidence in the form of big data visualizations on jurors’ decisions. Using an experiment with mock juror participants (n = 582), the study examines how visualization design features and audit evidence reliability affect jurors’ negligence assessments. We find evidence for interactive effects of visualization design and evidence reliability where mock jurors make higher negligence likelihood judgments when audit evidence reliability is higher and visualizations are more vivid. Mediation results indicate that the combination of more vivid visualizations and more reliable audit evidence produces stronger emotional responses related to the auditor defendant; these negative emotional responses increase the likelihood of finding the auditor to be negligent. Overall, we find that data visualization techniques that can improve audit quality may expose auditors to increased litigation risk. Our study informs academics, auditors and regulators about the potential effects of audit evidence visualization choices on lay evaluators’ judgments.