Anxiety | factors affecting the accuracy of EWT

Question 1

Anxiety

Answer 1

Has strong emotional and physical effects; it is not clear whether this affects eyewitness recall in a positive or negative way

Question 2

Research to support the theory that anxiety has a negative effect on recall

Answer 2

Johnson and Scott 1976

Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body that prevents us from noticing important cues so recall is worse

Looked at the effect of weapons (which create anxiety) on the accuracy of recall

Lab, independent, volunteer

Question 3

J&S procedure

Answer 3

Participants asked to sit in a waiting area next to a lab before taking part in the experiment

2 conditions:
No-weapon (low anxiety)
Whilst waiting, overheard an argument in the next room, they then saw a man walk through the waiting area holding a pen with grease on his hand

Weapon (high anxiety)
Whilst waiting, overheard an argument in the next room, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. They then saw a man leave the room holding a paper knife covered in blood

Participants were then asked to identify the man who had left the room from a set of 50 photos

Question 4

J&S findings and conc

Answer 4

No-weapon condition:
49% could correctly identify the man but only a few could describe the pen

Weapon condition:
33% could correctly identify the man but most could describe the letter opener (suggesting participants were more focused on the weapon)

Question 5

Tunnel of memory

Answer 5

Argues that the attention of a witness will narrow to focus on the weapon because it’s the source of danger and anxiety

This is the weapons focus effect where a person focuses all their attention on the weapon and is unable to recall anything else

Question 6

Research to support the theory anxiety has a positive effect on recall

Answer 6

Christianson and Hubinette 1993

The stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety through physiological arousal; the fight or flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become more aware of cues in the situation

Natural experiment, independent groups, volunteer sampling

Question 7

Christianson and Hubinette 1993 procedure

Answer 7

58 participants who had witnessed 22 real life robberies between them were questioned about what they saw 4-15 months after the events

The witnesses were either victims (working behind the counter) and so experienced high anxiety or bystanders (customers) and so experienced low anxiety

Question 8

C&H findings and conclusions

Answer 8

All witnesses showed good memories for details of the robbery with around 75% accurate recall of events

Witnesses who had experienced high anxiety because they had been directly threatened by the robbers gave more accurate EWTs than witnesses who experienced low levels of anxiety as they had not been threatened

This suggests that anxiety, caused by being threatened, increased participants accuracy of their EWT

Question 9

Explanation for C&H findings

Answer 9

Yerkes-Dodson Law

States that the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U

Deffenbacher (1983) applied this to EWT saying that lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels accuracy in recall, then memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety reaches the optimal point

If anxiety surpasses the optimum level because the participant experiences higher levels of stress/anxiety then accuracy of recall is reduced