Benue State University, Makurdi

Effect of weapon focus on recognition:Implications for eyewitness testimony

Philip C. Mefoh PhD & Ejike S. Ugwu
(Department of Psychology, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria +2347062663826, uchoaondoaver@yahoo.com)

Abstract

This study examined the effect of weapon focus on recognition memory. The objective of the study is to determine whether participants in the no-weapon condition would recognize more information about the target stimulus than participants in the weapon condition. Data source was based on 80 senior secondary school students (Mean age = 15.23 years; SD = 2.72) who took the recognition test. One-way independent ANOVA was used in the analysis and the result substantially supported the research hypothesis: participants in the noweapon condition recognized more information about the stimulus material than 2 participants in the weapon condition (p <.001).The effect size value (ŋ =0.27) demonstrated that the result was not due to chance. The finding was discussed and its implication to errors of later recognition (i.e., eyewitness memory) was stated. The paper concluded with a call for future studies to work towards increasing the generalizability of their findings.

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