What is weapon focus theory?

What is weapon focus theory?

The weapon focus effect is the tendency for witnesses who observe an armed criminal to direct their attention toward the weapon so that they fail to encode and remember information about the perpetrator’s physical appearance as accurately as they would have if no weapon had been visible.

What was Scott and Johnson experiment?

Loftus (1979) [not to be confused with Loftus & Palmer (1974)] reported the findings of Johnson and Scott (1976) who conducted an experiment to see if anxiety affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and facial recognition.

What is EWT psychology?

Eyewitness testimony is a legal term. It refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed. Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory.

What is the weapon focus effect quizlet?

Terms in this set (7) weapon focus effect. if a witness to a crime sees the perpetrator holding a weapon, such as a gun or a knife, they will tend to remember details of the weapon but be less accurate on other aspects of the scene, including the perpetrators face.

What was the aim of Loftus and Palmer Research?

Loftus and Palmer (1974) Study. Aim: To test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory.

What is the tunnel theory of memory?

phenomenon > memory phenomenon > tunnel memory. tunnel memory. Term proposed by Safer et al. (1998) to account for the fact that the memory of negative emotional events is better for the central details than for the peripheral details.

What did Loftus 1979 find?

Loftus’ findings seem to indicate that memory for an event that has been witnessed is highly flexible. If someone is exposed to new information during the interval between witnessing the event and recalling it, this new information may have marked effects on what they recall.

Is Yuille and Cutshall a natural experiment?

Recall was found to be accurate and two misleading questions had no effect on recall accuracy, even after a long time. Yuille and Cutshall’s experiment had ecological validity as it’s a field study (in a real environment and a real situation), meaning the behaviour was more likely to be spontaneous and natural.

What can affect EWT?

This is, in large part, because there are numerous factors that may affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

• Memory reconstruction.
• Lineup issues.
• Visual characteristics.
• Anxiety and stress.
• Obtaining legal representation.

How accurate are EWT?

Eye witness testimony (EWT) is regularly a deciding factor for courts in the criminal justice system to ‘prove’ the guilt or innocence of the criminally accused. However, inaccuracies in EWT are common, accounting for about 75% of incorrect convictions later found to be innocent using DNA evidence.

How is Loftus and Palmer High in validity?

However, Loftus and Palmer’s research took place in a laboratory of Washington University and was therefore highly controlled. This high degree of control reduces the chance of extraneous variable, increasing the validity of the results.

How is Loftus and Palmer related to schema theory?

The research is based upon Barlett’s schema theory, which suggests that memories can be influenced by the previous knowledge of a person. This is the idea what Loftus and Palmer’s research was based on: our previous knowledge knowledge influences our memory.

Can eyewitnesses overcome the weapon focus effect?

Two experiments explored whether weapons automatically capture attention or whether eyewitnesses can overcome the weapon focus effect if so instructed. Witnesses heard a lecture that either instructed them to attend to the target individual and avoid fixating on the weapon or presented unrelated information.

What is the weapon focus effect (WFE)?

The weapon focus effect (WFE) occurs when a weapon distracts eyewitnesses, harming memory for the perpetrator and other details. One explanation is that weapons are unusual in most contexts, and unusual objects distract eyewitnesses.

Does the presence of a gun affect memory of a scene?

The presence of a gun in the slide series was the only difference in the two conditions and it had a negative effect on memory, possibly because of weapon focus. – General memory: there was not much difference in general memory of the scene (50% in the control compared with 45% in the weapon condition)

Is there a weapon focus when witnessing a crime?

These results provide more solid evidence for the existence of a weapon focus when witnessing a crime – people are more likely to focus on a weapon than they are on a harmless object. This could also have negative effects on their reliability of memory as they are not focusing on the person but rather on the object.