Anxiety Flashcards
Who conducted RTC?
Christianson and Hubinette
What did C&H do?
They interviewed 58 real life witnesses of a bank robbery where some had been directly threatened and others were bystanders
What did C&H find?
Recall was 75% accurate across all witnesses, but those who had been directly threatened had even more accurate accounts which contradicts the theory that anxiety reduces the anxiety because compared to real life cases accuracy was higher in those with high anxiety as they were able to focus on key aspects of the event
What is a limitation?
It perhaps is not truly measuring anxiety as the reason the participants focused on the weapon may be surprised at what they saw rather than scared
What did Pickel do?
He conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a waller or a raw chicken as the handheld items in a hair dressing items in a salon video
What did Pickel find?
EWT accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness condition suggesting that weapon focus effect is due to surprise rather than anxiety/threat
What is the Yerkes-Dodson law?
This proposes that anxiety and the accuracy of EWT is not a simple relationship as different levels of anxiety affect the accuracy. Too much or too little anxiety would result in poor EWT however if you reach an optimum level of anxiety the accuracy is high
What does Yerkes-Dodson’s law explain in reference to Johnson and Scott’s & Christianson and Hubinette’s research?
Explains the differences in results. It may be suggested that the participants in C&H were at an optimum level of anxiety, which resulted in more accurate EWT. Whereas the participants in J&S’s may have not been as anxious due to it being an experiment, resulting in less accuracy - resolving the contradiction and validates that anxiety does affect EWT
