Anxiey In Eye Whitness Testimony

Question 1

What is anxiety?

Answer 1

A state of apprehension, uncertainty and fear resulting from a threatening situation.

Question 2

What can anxiety do if it’s levels are high?

Answer 2

When anxiety levels are high, it can impair both physical and psychological functioning. Many psychologists have suggested that the anxiety that occurs when witnessing a crime can prevent an accurate recall of that crime

Question 3

What is the weapon focus effect?

Answer 3

When there is a weapon present during the crime, anxiety increases and therefore could hinder the accurate recall of the crime. People who witness a crime will pay a great detail of attention to the aspect of the situation that is posing the most danger because of the anxiety that the weapon causes. Witnesses who see a violent crime involving a weapon can often recall the weapon in great detail, but not much of the perpetrator.

Question 4

What is the procedure of anxiety in eye witness testimony?

Answer 4

Loftus wanted to see if anxiety affected the persons ability to recognise the perpetrator of a crime. In experimental condition, he had participants overhear a hostile argument in which furniture was overturned and glass was broken. A man then emerged with a bloody letter opener. In the control condition participants over heard a convo between two people about lab equipment failure. A man then emerged with greasy hands and a pen. In both conditions participants were asked to indemnify the man from 50 photos

Question 5

What were the findings of the experiment into anxiety?

Answer 5

Only 33% in the experimental condition could identify the killer compared to 49% in the comtrol condition. Loftus argued that this occurred because participants focused on the bloody letter opener than the person carrying it as the letter opener was a weapon that posed a threat to the,

Question 6

Evaluation anxiety?

Answer 6

+ Study is supported by other studies. Loftus and burns assigned participants to watch a violent film about crime where a boys gets shot in the head, or to watch a non violent film about crime. Recall was less accurate in the violent film than those who saw non violent.

• Lacks ecological validity. Despite waiting in a lab, participants may have anticipated something to happen, which could have affected the accuracy of their judgements and the validity of the study
• Study violates several ethical guidelines as the participants were deceived about the nature of the experiment and they were also not protected from psychological harm. As they were exposed to a man ho supposedly killed someone. Participants may have left the experiment feeling stressed especially if they knew someone involved in knife crime
• Yuille and Cutshall investigated the effect of anxiety in a real life shooting where 1 person was killed and another seriously injured. Out of thr 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to take part in a follow up 5 months later. They were aged 15-32. The witnesses had accurate accounts of the event that changed little during from thier original testimony. They also avoided leading questions. Those who were most anxious during the shooting also gave the most accurate account. IRL leading questions and anxiety does not effect the accuracy of the EWT as compared to the laboratory.
• anxiety affects peoples memory in different ways. Some have improved recall when anxious. Christianson and Hubinette conducted research using 110 real life eyewitnesses from a total of 22 bank robberies. Some were onlookers, some were direct victims of the robbers. It was found that the victims had more detailed and accurate recall than the onlookers on thier description of the bank robbers