[citation needed] Within the criminal justice system tunnel vision refers to the tendency of investigators and prosecutors to use heuristics to filter evidence in order to build a case for a suspect’s conviction in a discriminatory manner.
Results showed that police investigators assigned higher confidence scores in the suspect’s guiltiness than laypeople when both incriminating and exonerating evidence was presented.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada describes potential factors that contribute to tunnel vision within the criminal justice system such as when the offender is perceived as an outsider or minority, or when the investigator is subject to institutional pressures such as reaching an expected goal in a short amount of time.
al. suggest that tunnel vision is partly an innate process and the product of multiple cognitive distortions that obstruct accuracy in what we perceive.
The phrase ‘choking under pressure’ has been used to refer to groups such as athletes or musicians when motor actions may be compromised and tunnel vision occurs due to stress, leading to narrow attention span and focus on internal thought processes.
[4] They administered a questionnaire consisting of 93 questions to 300 professional pianists which asked about physical, emotional and mental experiences when playing challenging pieces that were well-prepared, on stage in front of an audience.
Respondents were asked to rate the severity of tunnel vision experienced when their desire for superior performance was maximal and outcomes were poorer than expected.
Results demonstrated 8 factors characterising tunnel vision in musicians such as failure of memory recall and feeling rushed and out of body control.