Anxiety and EWT

Question 1

How does anxiety affect recall?

Answer 1

It can have a negative or positive effect on recall

Question 2

What was Johnson and Scott’s study (1976)?

Answer 2

Ppts sat in waiting room, hear argument next door, two conditions:
Low anxiety- man walks through holding pen with grease on hands
High anxiety- breaking glass heard, man walks through holding paper knife covered in blood
Ppts had to pick him out from 50 photos
49% of low anxiety could ID him
33% of high anxiety could ID him

Question 3

What was Yuille and Cutshall’s study(1986)?

Answer 3

Real life eye witnesses studied
Gun shop owner shot gun thief dead, 21 witnesses- 13 agreed to participate, interviewed 4/5 months later, witnesses rated how stressed they were at the time, high levels of stress had 88% accuracy months later, low levels of stress had 75%

Question 4

What is the inverted U hypothesis?

Answer 4

very low levels and very high levels of anxiety cause worse EWT, however in between is improved accuracy

Question 5

Evaluation

Answer 5

Johnson and Scott- May be testing shock not anxiety
Lack of control- Yuille and Cutshall, a lot could happen in 4/5 months
Demand characteristics reduce validity
Johnson and Scott- unethical- lack of informed consent, no protection from harm