Anxiety on memory

Question 1

What characteristics does anxiety have?

Answer 1

• Cognitive: mental processes; thoughts, attention
• Emotional: feelings of fear, anxiety and dread
• Behavioural: what we do/physical; heart racing, shaking and sweating

Question 2

What study shows that anxiety has a negative effect on recall?

Answer 2

• Johnson and Scott
• Participants in a study were asked to wait outside a lab and ‘overheard’ an argument
• Condition 1: low anxiety - a man came out with greasy hands holding a pen
• Condition 2: high anxiety - heard breaking glass and then a man came out holding a paper knife covered in blood
• Participants were then shown 50 photographs and asked if they could identify the man who had come out of the lab

Question 3

What were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s study?

Answer 3

Condition 1: low anxiety - 49% accurate recall
Condition 2: high anxiety - 33% accurate recall
Conclusion: Heightened arousal - weapon focuses attention and so other aspects of the scene are ignored

Question 4

What did Pickel want to test?

Answer 4

If it was anxiety or just surprise that was being tested in weapon focus experiments.

Question 5

What happened in Pickel’s study?

Answer 5

• Participants watched a video of a person entering a hair dresser’s carry either:
• Gun (high threat, high surprise)
• Wallet (low threat, low surprise)
• Scissors (high threat, low surprise)
• Raw chicken (low threat, high surprise)

Question 6

What were the findings of Pickel’s study?

Answer 6

• Gun - poor recall
• Wallet - good recall
• Scissors - good recall
• Raw chicken - poor recall

Question 7

What study showed anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 7

• Christianson and Hubinette
• They questioned 58 participants who had witnessed genuine bank robberies
• Bystanders had low anxiety
• Those directly threatened by the bank robbers had high anxiety
• 75% recall accuracy
• Those who had experienced high anxiety had a more accurate recall than bystanders

Question 8

What were the positives to Christianson and Hubinette’s study on anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 8

• It was a natural experiment
• High ecological validity - studying reaction to real events so behaviour is real-life behaviour
• Ethical - any stress from the original event is not the researcher’s responsibility

Question 9

What were the negatives to Christianson and Hubinette’s study on anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 9

• Lack of control over extraneous variables in a natural setting eg, type of weapon, number of assailants
• Proximity to the robbers - those who were directly threatened were likely to have been closer to get a better look, compared to bystanders
• Those directly threatened were likely to be employed by bank and feel more responsibility to identify or have training to identify

Question 10

How can the contradiction of anxiety effecting recall be explained?

Answer 10

• The Yerkes - Dodson law

- Says that performance improves with increased arousal up to an optimal point, then declines