Anxiety Flashcards
Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony
What is anxiety?
A state of emotional and physical arousal.
Normal reaction to stressful situations
How can anxiety have a negative effect on recall?
Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevent us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse,
What was Johnson and Scott’s procedure on how anxiety can negatively affect recall?
Participants believed they we in lab study.
Seated in waiting room - low anxiety condition
Heard casual convo in next room
Saw man walk past carrying pen and with grease on hands
High anxiety condition
Heard heated argument
Accompanied by sound of breaking glass
Man walk out of room, holding knife covered in blood.
What were Johnson and Scotts findings?
Later picked out the man from set of 50 photos
49% - man carrying pen able to identify
33% - man holding blood knife
What is the tunnel theory?
People have enhanced memory for central events.
Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect
How can anxiety have a positive effect on recall?
Witnessing a stressful event creates anxiety
Fight or flight response is triggered, increasing alertness.
May improve memory for the event as we become more aware of cues in situation
What was Yuille and Cutshall procedure on anxiety having a positive effect on recall?
Actual shooting in a gun shop in Canada
Shop owner shot their dead
13 witnesses took part in study
Interviewed 4-5 months after incident
Compared with original police interviews
Accuracy determined by number of details reported
Witnesses asked to rate how stressed they felt at time of incident
Whether they had any emotional problems since event
What were Yuille and Cutshalls findings?
Witnesses were very accurate
Little change in amount recalled or accuracy
Highest levels of stress were more accurate
88% compared to 75%
Suggesting anxiety does not have detrimental effect on accuracy of eyewitness memory in real world context and may even enhance it
What did Yerkes and Dodson argue?
Relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U
What did Deffenbacher review?
21 studies of EWT
Contidictory findings on effects of anxiety
What is Yerkes-Dodson law?
When witness a crime/accident we become emotionally and physiologically aroused
We experience anxiety as well as physiological change to our body (fight or flight)
Lower levels - produced lower levels of recall accuracy
Levels increase - Memory more accurate
There is optimal level of anxiety
Point of maximum accuracy
If person experiences any more arousal, their recall suffers a drastic decline.
What is an evaluation of anxiety?
Unusualness not anxiety
Johnson and Scott
May not have tested anxiety
May have focused on weapon due to surprised at what they saw no scared.
Pickel
Experiment using scissors, handgun, wallet, raw chicken
Hand held items in a hair dressing salon video
EWT accuracy significantly poorer in high usualness conditions
Suggesting weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety and tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT.
What is an evaluation of anxiety?
Support for negative effects
Valentine et al
Used objective measure - heart rate
Divide participants ability into high and low anxiety groups
Anxiety clearly disrupted ability to recall details about actors in London dungeons labyrinth
Suggesting high levels of anxiety do have an effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event
What is an evaluation of anxiety?
Support for positive effects
Christianson et al
Interview
58 witnesses
To bank roberies in Sweden
Some directly involved and some indirectly
Assumed that those directly involved would experience most anxiety
Recall was more than 75% accurate across al witnesses
Direct victims were even more accurate
Findings from actual crimes confirm anxiety does not reduce accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses and may even enhance it
What is an evaluation of anxiety?
Counterpoint to support for positive effects
Christianosn et al
interviewed several months after event
Reserachers had no control over what happened during intervening time.
Effets of anxiety may have been overwhelmed by these other factors
Impossible to assess by time participants we interviews
Possible to lack control over confounding variables may be responsible for these findings, invalidating their support.
