8. factors affecting EWT: anxiety Flashcards
ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
JOHNSON AND SCOTT
Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.
PROCEDURE:
Their participants believed they were taking part in a lab study. While seated in a waiting room, participants in the low anxiety condition heard casual conversation in the next room and then saw a man walk past them caring a pen and with grease on his hands.
Other participants overheard a heated argument, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked out of the room, holding a knife covered in blood.
This was the high-anxiety condition.
ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
JOHNSON AND SCOTT
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION:
explain weapon focus
The participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos, 49% who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him. The corresponding figure for the participants who had seen the man holding the blood-covered knife was 33%. The tunnel theory of memory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events. Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect: the effect of the presence of a weapon creates anxiety, this leads to a focus on the weapon, reducing a witness’s recall for other details of the event.
ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
AO3: strength of ANXIETY HAVING A NEGATIVE EFFECT
research support - Valentine and mesout (london dungeon)
One strength is evidence supporting the view that anxiety has a negative effect on the accuracy of recall.
Valentine and Mesut used an objective measure (heart rate) to divide participants into high- and low-anxiety groups. In this study anxiety clearly disrupted the participants’ ability to recall details about the actor they were meant to identify in the London Dungeon’s Labyrinth. This supports the research on weapon focus, finding negative effects on recall.
This suggests that a high level of anxiety does have a negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event.
ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
AO3: limitation of ANXIETY HAVING A NEGATIVE EFFECT
contradicting evidence - Pickel (unusualness)
One limitation of the study by Johnson and Scott is that it may not have tested anxiety.
The reason participants focused on the weapon may be because they were surprised at what they saw rather than scared. Pickel conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet, or a raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video. Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun).
This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT.
ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
YUILLE AND CUTSHALL
Anxiety may improve memory for the event as we become more aware of cues in the situation.
PROCEDURE:
a study of an actual shooting in a gun shop in Canada where shop owner shot a thief dead. There were 21 witnesses - 13 took part in the study. They were interviewed four to five months after the incident and these interviews were compared with the original police interviews at the time of the shooting. Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident (on a 7-point scale) and whether they had any emotional problems since the event.
ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
YUILLE AND CUTSHALL
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
The witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount recalled or accuracy after five months - though some details were less accurate, such as recollection of the colour of items and age/height/weight estimates.
Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group). This suggests that anxiety does not have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of eyewitness memory in a real-world context and may even enhance it.
EXPLAINING THE CONTRADICTORY FINDINGS
According to Yerkes and Dodson the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an ‘ inverted U’.
Deffenbacher reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings on the effects of anxiety.
He used the Yerkes-Dodson Law to explain the findings.
When we witness a crime/accident we become emotionally and physiologically aroused we experience anxiety (emotional) as well as physiological changes in our body (the fight or flight response).
Lower levels of anxiety/arousal produce lower levels of recall accuracy, and then memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety/arousal increases.
However, there is an optimal level of anxiety, which is the point of maximum accuracy.
If a person (or eyewitness) experience any more arousal, then their recall suffers a drastic decline.
ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
AO3: strength of ANXIETY HAVING A POSITIVE EFFECT
research support - Christiansen
A strength is evidence showing that anxiety can have positive effects on the accuracy of recall.
Christiansen interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden. Some of the witnesses were directly involved (e.g. bank workers) and some were indirectly involved (e.g. bystanders). The researchers assumed that those directly involved would experience the most anxiety. It was found that recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses. The direct victims (most anxious) were even more accurate.
These findings from actual crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses and may even enhance it.
ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL
AO3: limitation of ANXIETY HAVING A POSITIVE EFFECT
counterpoint - Christiansen lacks control
Christiansen interviewed the participants several months after the event.
The researchers therefore had no control over what happened to their participants in the intervening time (e.g. post-event discussions). The effects of anxiety may have been overwhelmed by these other factors and impossible to assess by the time the participants were interviewed.
Therefore, it is possible that a lack of control over confounding variables may be responsible for these findings, invalidating their support.
