Weapon Focus and Gender Differences in Eyewitness Accuracy: Arousal Versus Salience

Abstract

Competing theories of arousal versus salience and object enhancement vs. reduced perceptual processing as explanations for the weapon focus effect in eyewitness identification were examined. Male and female students (N= 200) viewed a videotape of a male or female intruder rudely barging into a classroom while carrying a book, a gun, or an unusual object and demanding to know the whereabouts of another student. Feature accuracy recall of both the intruder and the object were assessed on a postexperimental questionnaire. Results supported the salience and reduced‐perceptual‐processing hypotheses, suggesting that weapon focus may be a special instance of a more general salient object effect. An own‐gender bias in eyewitness identification was replicated when no weapon or unusual objects distracted eyewitnesses, but was reversed when a weapon or an unusual object was present.