EWT: Anxiety Flashcards
How does anxiety have a negative effect on recall?
Anxiety creates physiological arousal which prevents us from paying attention to important cues (recall is worse)
Who studied anxiety having a negative effect on recall?
Johnson and Scott (1976)
What was Johnson and Scott’s procedure?
Told participants they were taking part in a lab study. While in the waiting room, pps heard argument in the next room.
Low anxiety group: man walked into waiting room carrying a pen with grease on his hands
Other pps heard same argument, accompanied with sound of breaking glass.
High anxiety group: man walked out carrying paper knife covered in blood.
PPs later picked out man from a set of 50 photos
What were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s study?
49% of PPs in low anxiety identified him, only 33% could do the same from high anxiety.
What does the tunnel theory argue?
A witness’ attention narrows to focus on a weapon because it is a source of anxiety
How does anxiety have a positive effect on recall?
Stress of witnessing a crime creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body.
Flight or fight response is triggered, increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become more aware of cues in the situation
Who researched anxiety having a positive effect on recall?
Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
What was the procedure of Yuille and Cutshall’s study?
Conducted study of a real-life shooting in a gun shop in Vancouver
Owner shot a thief dead
21 witnesses (interviewed immediately by police), 13 agreed to take part
Interviews held 4-5 months post incident and were compared with original police interviews
Accuracy determined by number of details reported in each account
Witnesses also asked to rate stress they felt at the time using a 7-point scale and if they had an emotional problems since the event e.g. sleeplessness
What were the findings of Yuille and Cutshall’s study?
Witnesses were very accurate, little change in amount or accuracy after 5 months
Some details less accurate: recollection of colour of items, age, height, weight estimates
Those who reported highest stress were most accurate
How do you explain the contradictory findings?
Yerkes and Dodson: relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an ‘inverted U’ (bell curve)
Deffenbacher: applied Yerkes-Dodson law to EWT: lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy but memory becomes more accurate as level of anxiety increases; there is a point of optimal anxiety
Limitation: weapon focus may not be relevant
Johnson and Scott may test surprise rather than anxiety
Reason PPs focus on weapon because they are surprised at what they see rather than scared
Pickel conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon, EW accuracy was significantly poorer in high unusualness condition (chicken and handgun)
So weapons focus effect is due to unusualness not anxiety
Limitation: field studies sometimes lack control
The effects of anxiety may be overwhelmed by these other factors (post event discussions, media, police interviews), and impossible to assess by the time the PPs are interviewed
Therefore, extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall which affects validity
Limitation: ethical issues
Creating anxiety in PPs in very risky
Subjects peoples to psychological harm for purposes of research
Real life studies are beneficial: psychologists interview people who have already witnesses a real event, no need to create it
Questions the need for such research
Limitation: demand characteristics
Most PPs aware they are watching a filmed crime for a reason to do with the study
Chances are most will work out what questions they will be asked about what they have seen
Therefore, studies are not really measuring how accurate someone is at recalling what they have seen but rather how good they are at working out the aim of the study
Reduces validity
