The Presence of a Weapon Shrinks the Functional Field of View

Abstract

Summary This study examined whether the functional field of view shrinks by the presence of a weapon or the increase of emotional arousal. In Experiment 1, participants viewed two types of pictures depicting scenes involving weapons or control objects and were asked to identify digits presented at the periphery when the pictures disappeared. The results showed that the presence of a weapon impaired identification of the peripheral digits, even when the pictures were equal with respect to emotional arousal level. In Experiment 2, participants viewed emotionally arousing pictures or neutral pictures, neither of which included weapons, and they were asked to identify digits presented at the periphery when the pictures disappeared. The results revealed that the increased emotional arousal did not impair identification of the peripheral digits. These results indicate that the functional field of view shrinks because of the presence of a weapon but not because of increased emotional arousal.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Understanding the weapon focus effect: The role of threat, unusualness, exposure duration, and scene complexity

“…This would explain why we found more correct identifications of the object-wielding perpetrator in the flamingo compared with the gun/knife condition when the video was short. Certainly, such an interpretation is consistent with recent work demonstrating that weapons reduce functional field of view (Harada et al, 2015) and bias attentional priorities (Biggs, Brockmole, & Witt, 2013).…”

“…Fear has been shown to cause attentional narrowing whereby attention is devoted to the stimulus evoking the fear (i.e., a central stimulus) to the exclusion of other stimuli in the environment (i.e., peripheral stimuli, Christianson, 1992). There is evidence supporting this view (Hope & Wright, 2007;Hulse & Memon, 2006;Kramer, Buckhout, & Eugenio, 1990) although evidence to the contrary is perhaps more often found (e.g., Cooper, Kennedy, Hervé, & Yuille, 2002;Harada, Hakoda, Kuroki, & Mitsudo, 2015;Shaw & Skolnick, 1999;Van Koppen & Lochun, 1997;Wagstaff et al, 2003) and threat was not a significant moderator in a recent meta-analysis (Fawcett et al, 2013). However, eliciting arousal in the laboratory akin to the level of arousal that would be inspired during a weapon-involved crime would be unethical; therefore, effective tests of this hypothesis are challenging (Fawcett, Peace, & Greve, 2016).…”

An exploration into the contributing cognitive skills of lifeguard visual search

“…It is possible that FFOV experiential effects were found in these driving studies because there was a genuine reason that drivers might want to reorient attention based on a peripheral cue (i.e., a sudden peripheral onset might indicate the appearance of a pedestrian entering the roadway). In the current study however, following the design of many traditional FFOV studies (Harada et al, 2015; Power & Conlon, 2017), there was no domain‐relevant need to attend to extrafoveal regions, as the information of primary interest (the drowning/non‐drowning swimmer) was always placed at the centre of the screen. If the peripheral targets had appeared overlaid on a full video display of a swimming pool, with participants encouraged to search wherever they wanted, lifeguards may have had an increased reason to deploy extrafoveal attention, thus producing the predicted experiential effect on peripheral target detection.…”

Dissociating Attention and Eye Movements in a Quantitative Analysis of Attention Allocation

“…Figure 7 provides an estimate of what is referred to as the “effective” or “functional field of view.” This is the domain, measured in degrees, over which a stimulus can attract attention. Research shows that it is wider than the fovea's domain and is strongly influenced by individual differences, such as age, and perceptual factors, such as the shape and arrangement of the stimuli, and semantic factors, such as whether the stimulus array includes a dangerous object, such as a weapon (Ball et al, 1988 ; Williams, 1989 ; Harada et al, 2015 ). Figure 7 shows that for distances of about 1.25 to 5.0°, performance remained at about 80% correct.…”