The study sample included 192 jurors, 150 females and 42 males, who were randomly assigned to the three experimental conditions. The trial consisted of a 2-hour audiotape of a toxic tort case involving a chemical company's liability. It was found that permitting mock jurors to take notes during the trial improved their performance, compared to jurors who were not given the opportunity to take notes. Enhancing qualities of notetaking were observed at several levels. First, jurors made cognitive distinctions with respect to the severity of injuries incurred by four differentially worthy plaintiffs. Second, notetaker decisions exhibited greater differentiation among plaintiffs. Notetakers made correct distinctions in assigning liability and compensatory awards among plaintiffs and recalled significantly more probative evidence than non-notetakers. The almost identical performance of the notes access group and the notes without access group suggested that notetaking had its impact at the encoding stage rather than at the retrieval stage. Possible motivational differences that may account for the study results are discussed. 18 references and 3 tables