Does a weapon attract eyewitness attention
Does a weapon attract eyewitness attention
复制标题
武器是否会引起目击者的注意
DOI：
10.4189/shes.12.7
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发表时间：
2014
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
S. Kitagami
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Ami;S. Kitagami
目击证人常常记不住犯罪人的细节。这是因为目击者在遭遇过程中主要关注的是武器。这种现象被称为武器聚焦效应。在武器聚焦效应过程的基础上，个体可能存在一种关注武器的倾向。本实验旨在调查武器是否比中性物体更能吸引注意力。我们评估了参与者在相同条件下对武器照片和中性物体的视觉注意力。我们首先依次展示了刀具（即武器）和手机（即中性物体）等物体的照片。参与者必须在每张照片出现时点击鼠标按钮。我们预测，对武器刺激的反应时间会比对中性物体的反应时间短。结果显示，参与者对武器的反应时间比对其他物体的反应时间短。这些结果与我们的预测一致，并且表明个体具有更快关注武器的系统。本研究表明，武器影响目击证人的注意力，导致武器焦点效应。
Eyewitness often fails to remember details about the perpetrator of a crime. That is because the witness primarily focuses on the weapon during the encounter. This phenomenon is known as the weapon focus effect. On the basis of the process of the weapon focus effect, there may be a tendency of individuals to attend to a weapon. The present experiment was designed to investigate whether weapons attract more attention than do neutral objects. We assessed participants’ visual attention to photographs of weapons and neutral objects presented under identical conditions. We first presented photographs of objects such as knives (i.e., weapons) and cell phones (i.e., neutral objects) in turn. Participants had to click a mouse button as soon as each photograph appeared. We predicted that RTs to the weapon stimuli would be shorter than would those to neutral objects. It was revealed that participants’ RTs to weapons were shorter than to other objects. These results are in line with our prediction, and suggesting that individuals have system to pay faster attention to weapons. The present study implies that a weapon influence eyewitness’ attention, leading to the weapon focus ef -fect.