The effects of visual features of a weapon on eyewitnesses' cognitive processing

Abstract

This study examines the hypothesis that a knife attracts witnesses' attention because of its pointed shape. In Experiment 1, 60 participants were shown a picture of a kitchen scene in which a woman held one of three items: a pointed knife, a square-shaped knife, or a detergent spray bottle. The weapon focus effect was measured by the recognition of details related to the object. Recognition information was significantly greater in the pointed knife condition than in the other conditions. In Experiment 2,40 participants viewed slides that depicted the assembling of a plastic model using either pointed tweezers or square-shaped tweezers. As in Experiment 1, participants remembered more details in the pointed tweezers condition than the other condition. Both results show that visual features of a weapon affect witnesses' memory and suggest that the pointed shape of knife is a factor that attracts witnesses' attention.