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.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e81011 |
Pages (from-to) | e81011 |
Journal | PLoS One |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 11 Dec 2013 |