EWT - anxiety

Question 1

explain Yerkes dodson curve

Answer 1

high anxiety = poor recall
moderate anxiety = optimum recall
low anxiety = poor recall

another account - weapon focus
distracts attention due to anxiety it creates

Question 2

research into anxiety - johnson and scott
conversations outside room

Answer 2

listening to conversations outside
Violent and no violence
Weapon and no weapon

Findings:
Low anxiety, no weapon – 49% accurately identified
High anxiety weapon – 33% accuracy

Conclusions: suggest weapon distracted attention from person explain poor recall for violent crimes
involving weapons where anxiety might be heightened

Question 3

research into anxiety
Loftus and burns

Film of stimulated robbery

Answer 3

Watch film of stimulated robbery
Some- violent - boy shot in face
Some – nonviolent

Findings: one questioned – nonviolent recalled significantly more details than violent

Conclusion: shock of event height and arousal, disrupted memory storage of details before and after violence scene

Question 4

evaluation of anxiety
Lacks validity

Answer 4

For being an artificial
Video is not the same as real incident
Not as unexpected or emotional as it would be in real life
Recall different to lab experiment settings
Lax ecological validity- undermining findings that anxiety used to inaccurate memory recall

Question 5

evaluation of anxiety
Surprise not anxiety

Answer 5

Pickel- reduced accuracy caused by weapon focus effect - could actually be due to surprise not anxiety
Watched thief enter with four different props
High surprise recall poorer than high threat
Questions the validity of the research