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Understanding the weapon focus effect: The role of threat, unusualness, exposure duration, and scene complexity
Author(s) -
Mansour Jamal K.,
Hamilton Claire M.,
Gibson Matthew T.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3515
Subject(s) - psychology , focus (optics) , duration (music) , event (particle physics) , object (grammar) , social psychology , poison control , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , medical emergency , medicine , art , physics , literature , quantum mechanics , optics
Summary We examined the role of exposure duration and scene complexity on the weapon focus effect (WFE). Memory for the mock crime was affected more by a weapon than an unusual but nonthreatening object. Threat reduced correct identifications when the event was short but not long; duration of the event did not interact with unusualness. Additionally, we found a WFE for target‐absent lineup decisions, but only for the accomplice lineup, not the object‐wielding perpetrator's lineup. We discuss the implications of these results for illuminating the mechanisms that elicit the WFE.