Anxiety MEM

Question 1

anxiety

Answer 1

a state of emotional and physical arousal. The emotions include having worried thoughts and feelings of tension. Physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweating

Question 2

tunnel theory

Answer 2

anxiety narrows your attention onto one aspect of a scene

Question 3

Anxiety has a negative effect on recall

Answer 3

Physiological arousal prevents us from paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse. The effects of the presence of a weapon is investigated.

**Johnson **and Scott

Question 4

Johnson and Scott’s procedure

Answer 4

• Participants believed it was a lab study
• Low-anxiety condition involved seeing someone walk past holding a pen with greasy hands after a casual conversation
• High- anxiety condition involved seeing someone walk past with a bloody knife in their hand after a heated argument and breaking glass

Question 5

Johnson and ** Scott’s** findings and conclusions

Answer 5

Participants later picked the man out of 50 pictures and 49% of the low-anxiety group were able to identify him whereas only 33% of the high-anxiety group could. The tunnel theory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events. Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect.

Question 6

Anxiety has a positive effect on recall

Answer 6

The fight or flight response is triggered with anxiety, increasing alertness

yuille and Cutshall

Question 7

yuille and Cutshall procedure

Answer 7

• Study of an actual shooting in a gun shop
• Owner shot thief dead
• 21 witnesses → 13 in the study
• Interviewed 4-5 months after the event and compared with initial police interviews
• Rate how stressed they felt at the time
• Noted any emotional problems since the event

Question 8

yuille and Cutshall findings and conclusions

Answer 8

Eyewitnesses were very accurate yet some details such as colours were less accurate. Participants who recorded the highest stress levels were most accurate (**88% **compared to 75%). Anxiety does not have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of EWT.

Question 9

Explaining the contradictory findings

Answer 9

Yerkes and **Dodson **found that the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U. Deffenbacher reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings. He used Yerkes-Dodson Law to explain these. There is an optimal level of anxiety where there is maximum accuracy.

Question 10

Support for negative effects

strength

Answer 10

• Valentine and mesout
• London dungeons
• Weapon focus
• Objective measures like heart rate
• High and low anxiety groups
• Anxiety clearly disrupted recall
  High levels of anxiety does have a negative effect on immediate EWT

Question 11

unusualness not anxiety

limitation

Answer 11

Johnson and** scott **may not have tested anxiety
Surprised rather than scared
* Pickel
* Random objects in hair salon video
* Scissors were highest anxiety but most usual
* EWT significant poorer in high unusualness conditions
Weapon focus effect is not due to anxiety and therefore can’t tell us anything about the effects of anxiety on EWT.

Question 12

Support for positive effects + counterpoint

strength and limitation

Answer 12

• Christanson and Hubinetter
• 58 witnesses to actual bank robbery
• sweden
• Direct and indirect witnesses
• 75% accurate recall across all participants
• Higher in direct witnesses
  Findings confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses and may even enhance it.

BUT
* Interviews took place 4 months after the event
* Research had no control over participants in intervening time
* Post event discussion
Lack of control over confounding variables may be responsible for the findings, invalidating the support.

Question 13

problems with inverted U theory

limitation

Answer 13

• Ignores the fact that anxiety has many different elements (eg cognitive and emotional)
• Ignores cognitive