Accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Anxiety

Question 1

Define anxiety?

Answer 1

An unpleasant emotional state that is often accompanied by increased heart rate and rapid breathing (physiological arousal).

Question 2

What did Johnson and Scott study?

Answer 2

The weapon focus effect

Question 3

What was the method of Johnson and Scott’s study on the weapon focus effect?

Answer 3

Participants were asked to sit in a waiting room where they could hear an argument on the opposite room. Next they saw a man run through the room carrying either a greasy pen or a knife covered in blood. Participants were later asked to identify the man from a set of photographs.

Question 4

What was the results if Johnson and Scott’s study on the weapon focus effect?

Answer 4

The findings supported the idea of the weapon focus effect. Recall of the man was 49% accurate in the greasy pen condition, and 33% accurate in the knife condition.

Question 5

What is the weapon focus effect?

Answer 5

It suggests that the presence of a weapon during a crime causes the attention of the witness to be drawn to the weapon and away from any other details such as the person’s face.

Question 6

What did Christianson and Hubinette investigate?

Answer 6

How recall can be improved through increased arousal.

Question 7

What was the method of Christianson and Hubinette’s (1993) investigation?

Answer 7

58 witnesses were asked questions on a real bank robbery in Sweden. The witnesses were either victims or bystanders. The interviews were conducted 4-15 months later.

Question 8

What were the results of Christianson and Hubinette’s investigation?

Answer 8

The victims (who were most anxious) had the best recall. This suggest that anxiety does not reduce accuracy of recall.

Question 9

What did Pickel propose?

Answer 9

That the reduced accuracy of identification due to the weapon focus effect could actually be due to surprise rather than anxiety.

Question 10

What was the method of Pickel’s investigation?

Answer 10

Participants were asked to watch a thief entering a hairdressing salon carrying scissors (high threat, low surprise), handgun (high threat, high surprise), wallet (low threat, low surprise) or a whole raw chicken (low threat, high surprise)

Question 11

What were the results of Pickel’s investigation?

Answer 11

Identification was less accurate in the high surprise condition rather than the high threat condition. This supports the view that the weapon focus effect is related to surprise rather than anxiety.

Question 12

What did Halford and Milne find?

Answer 12

That victims of violent crimes were more accurate in their recall than witnesses of non-violent crimes

Question 13

How can individual differences effect the impact of anxiety?

Answer 13

Some people are more naturally anxious than others. It is believed that neurotic people become less accurate when stressed whereas the opposite is true for people who are naturally less anxious.

Question 14

What did Fazey and Hardy suggest?

Answer 14

That the relationship between anxiety and performance is more complex than Yerkes-Dodson believes. They suggested that there is a catastrophic decline due to increased mental anxiety not just physiological anxiety.

Question 15

What is the tunnel theory of memory?

Answer 15

In stressful situations, our attention narrows to focus on one aspect of a situation; it is as is we had tunnel vision.

Question 16

How does the tunnel theory of memory explain the relationship between eyewitness testimony and anxiety?

Answer 16

It explains weapon focus by stating that in a stressful situation our attention narrows onto the weapon as it is the source of our anxiety. This results in less accurate EWT for all aspects of a situation except the most pertinent.

Question 17

What response shows that anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 17

The fight or flight response

Question 18

What is the fight or flight response?

Answer 18

There is an alternative argument that high anxiety creates more enduring memories. The stress of witnessing a crime creates anxiety through physiological arousal in the body.

Question 19

How does it explain relationship between eyewitness testimony and anxiety?

Answer 19

The fight-or-flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become more aware of the cues in the situation.

Question 20

What conclusions can be drawn from the Yerkes - Dodson inverted- U graph?

Answer 20

The graph shows that when anxiety is too low or too high, memory is less accurate. Accuracy is at its best when anxiety levels are moderate.

The YDL represents a curvilinear relationship between anxiety and recall in which memory gradually improves from low up to the moderate anxiety levels (the optimum level), then gradually decreases when anxiety becomes too high.

Question 21

Outline the 5 limitations of research into anxiety as a factor affecting recall.

Answer 21

• Weapon focus may not be caused by anxiety.
• Real life vs lab studies - the issue of external validity.
• Lack of control in real life studies.
• Ethical issues.
• The inverted U explanation is too simplistic.

Question 22

What did Kenneth Deffenbacher research?

Answer 22

Reviewed 21 studies of the effects of anxiety on eyewitness memory. He found that 10 of these studies had results that linked higher arousal levels to increased eyewitness accuracy while 11 of them had shown the opposite.

Question 23

Evaluation: Lack of ecological validity

Answer 23

Loftus’s (Johnson and Scott’s) research has been criticised for lacking ecological validity. Although the participants were waiting in the reception area outside the laboratory, they may have anticipated that something was going to happen, which could have affected the accuracy of their judgements. Furthermore, the results from real life case studies (see above) refute the findings of Loftus and suggest that her results do not represent real-life cases of extreme anxiety.

Question 24

Evaluation: Ethical issues

Answer 24

Numerous ethical guidelines were broken. The participants were deceived about the nature of the experiment and not protected from harm. Loftus (John and Scott) exposed some of the participants to a man holding a bloodied knife, which could have cause extreme feelings of anxiety. This is an issue as these participants may have left the experiment feeling exceptionally stressed and anxious, especially if they, or someone they knew, had been involved in knife crime.

Question 25

Evaluation: Research support

Answer 25

Further research from Deffenbacher et al (1983) supports the suggestion that anxiety affects the accuracy of EWT. Deffenbacher et al concluded from a meta-analysis that anxiety levels that are too low or too high negatively affect EWT accuracy suggesting that eyewitness testimony is impaired if a person becomes too anxious. This is positive because it is further evidence that high levels of anxiety can result in false eyewitness testimony, as found in Loftus’ research, supporting the theory that anxiety affects EWT accuracy.