Weapon focus

Biological Parallel

Prey animals fixate on predator teeth and claws at the expense of other details—threat cues capture attention completely because survival depends on tracking the danger source. Pigeons use foveal fixation to inspect predator cues, with earlier foveation reducing escape latency for the individual and nearby flock members. Peacocks exposed to predators increase fixations on the threat while fixation duration on conspecifics and environmental features collapses—pupil size increases simultaneously with physiological arousal. Fatigued prey selectively narrow attention to fast-approaching predators while ignoring slow threats when attentional resources are limited. Weapon focus is threat-driven tunnel vision: when a stimulus signals immediate danger, attention narrows to that stimulus while peripheral encoding collapses. This is adaptive attentional hijacking: remembering the gun barrel perfectly doesn't help if you miss it initially.