SSS 2012-03-22
时间：2012-04-16 06:07:37
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（单词翻译）
A quarter of all police shootings involve unarmed suspects. In a few recent cases, officers mistook cell phones and hairbrushes for guns, and shot and killed the victims. Now a study may explain—in part—these errors. Researchers found that when a person holds a gun, they’re more likely to think they see a weapon being carried by another. That study is in the Journal of Experimental Psychology1: Human Perception and Performance.
Researchers had volunteers hold a Wii handgun or a
foam2 ball. Then they flashed images of people either holding guns or objects like
soda3 cans, and asked volunteers to decide if they'd seen a weapon. The subjects holding the Wii gun were more likely to mistakenly see a gun in the hands of their onscreen "
foe4." When researchers
varied5 the experiment, subjects holding shoes were more likely to see shoes onscreen.
The reason, the authors say, is that just planning to possibly use an object—like a pistol—might prime the brain for spotting that object. Which might be a great advantage for quickly noting when a suspect is indeed armed. But can cause
tragic6 overreactions when there’s really no gun in sight.
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American 60 Second Science, I am Christopher Intagliata
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