EWT: Anxiety

Question 1

Define anxiety.

Answer 1

State of physio and psycho arousal, involving feeling tense/worried + sweaty and inc heart rate

Question 2

Outline one study that suggests anxiety NEGATIVELY affects EWT.

Answer 2

1. Johnson + Scott (1976)
2. Study of weapon focus on EWT acc
3. Ppts thought it was a lab study, heard argument in next room
4. Low anx cond = man walked in with pen and grease
5. High anx cond = heard glass breaking, man walked in w prop knife covered in blood
6. Ppts identify man from 50 photos
   - 49% correctly in low anx cond
   - 33% correctly in high anx cond
7. CONC = anx = physio arousal, neg affects attention to cues, worsening recall

Question 3

What is Tunnel Theory? What study does this apply to?

Answer 3

1. TT = witness tend to focus of weap b/c it causes anxiety

2. Johnson + Scott (1976)

Question 4

Outline one study that suggests anxiety has a POSITIVE affect on EWT.

Answer 4

1. Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
2. Ppts saw IRL shooting in gun shop in Canada
3. 13 ppts interviewed 5 months after event
   
   • rated stress lvl @ time of event w 7-point scale
   • asked if they had any emo prob since event
4. Ppts w highest reported stress lvl = 88% acc recall
5. Ppts w lowest reported stress lvl = 75% acc recall
6. CONC: anx = physio arousal, triggers fight-or-flight response.
   
   • inc alertness + t.f. recall of event b/c hyper aware of cues

Question 5

What theory explains the contradictory findings of Johnson and Scott (1976) and Yuille and Cutshall (1986)?

Answer 5

1. Yerkes-Dodson Law - relationship bet emotional arousal + performance = “inverted U”
2. Deffenbacher applied YDL to EWT
   • EWT acc = low with low anx
   • Inc as anx lvl inc until optimum - i.e. max accuracy
   • If anx lvl inc passed opt, recall dec again

Question 6

Evaluate the Yerkes-Dodson Law.

Answer 6

1. Too simplistic
2. Anxiety = hard to measure acc b/c it involves many aspects
   
   • cognitive
   • behavioural
   • physiological
   • emotional
3. YDL assume only physio is linked to poor performance + t.f. doesnt acc for other factors that may influence mem

Question 7

Evaluate Johnson and Scott (1976).

Answer 7

1. Weapon focus effect may be irrelevant
2. Pickel (1998) - used scissors, gun, wallet + raw chick in a hair salon to test weap foc
   
   • EWT dec in high unusual cond (gun + chick)
3. Weap foc effects may be dues to ambiguity of sit rather than anx ; t.f. don’t know true affect of anx on EWT from weap foc research

Question 8

Evaluate Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

Answer 8

1. Field exp lack adequate controls
2. Researchers can’t control things that take place between time of event and time of study
   - e.g. PED or reading about event in news
3. T.f. EVs may have influenced acc of EWT, skews results

Question 9

Evaluate research into the effects of anxiety on EWT.

Answer 9

1. Possibly unethical
2. Many studies subjects ppts to psycho harm - field > lab b/c not inducing stress but can compare results
3. T.f. may be uness to conduct res if it causes harm, but also need to consider that benefits may > costs