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Oculomotor examination of the weapon focus effect: does a gun automatically engage visual attention?

Oculomotor examination of the weapon focus effect: does a gun automatically engage visual attention?
Oculomotor examination of the weapon focus effect: does a gun automatically engage visual attention?
A person is less likely to be accurately remembered if they appear in a visual scene with a gun, a result that has been termed the weapon focus effect (WFE). Explanations of the WFE argue that weapons engage attention because they are unusual and/or threatening, which causes encoding deficits for the other items in the visual scene. Previous WFE research has always embedded the weapon and nonweapon objects within a larger context that provides information about an actor's intention to use the object. As such, it is currently unknown whether a gun automatically engages attention to a greater extent than other objects independent of the context in which it is presented
1932-6203
e81011
Flowe, Heather D.
524e0262-acf3-4b24-851a-e0a9da24ce6f
Hope, Lorraine
d2d23f6a-fb96-4521-84df-910132f979e1
Hillstrom, Anne P.
835d455d-6b9e-4ee3-a619-6249f759c66c
Flowe, Heather D.
524e0262-acf3-4b24-851a-e0a9da24ce6f
Hope, Lorraine
d2d23f6a-fb96-4521-84df-910132f979e1
Hillstrom, Anne P.
835d455d-6b9e-4ee3-a619-6249f759c66c

Flowe, Heather D., Hope, Lorraine and Hillstrom, Anne P. (2013) Oculomotor examination of the weapon focus effect: does a gun automatically engage visual attention? PLoS ONE, 8 (12), e81011. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081011).

Record type: Article

Abstract

A person is less likely to be accurately remembered if they appear in a visual scene with a gun, a result that has been termed the weapon focus effect (WFE). Explanations of the WFE argue that weapons engage attention because they are unusual and/or threatening, which causes encoding deficits for the other items in the visual scene. Previous WFE research has always embedded the weapon and nonweapon objects within a larger context that provides information about an actor's intention to use the object. As such, it is currently unknown whether a gun automatically engages attention to a greater extent than other objects independent of the context in which it is presented

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Published date: 11 December 2013

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 371610
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/371610
ISSN: 1932-6203
PURE UUID: 227f00af-6b9f-4564-8b23-33fa7b5d2075

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Date deposited: 14 Nov 2014 09:11
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 18:23

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Contributors

Author: Heather D. Flowe
Author: Lorraine Hope
Author: Anne P. Hillstrom

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