EWT - Anxiety

Question 1

Johnson and Scott (1976) - Anxiety has a negative effect on EWT

Answer 1

Procedure -

Pts sat in a waiting room + believed they were waiting to take part in a lab study.
Pts heard an argument in the next room and were then subject to 1 of 2 conditions:
1. Low anxiety condition - A man walked out of the room carrying a pen with grease in his hands
2. High anxiety condition - The argument was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. The man then walked out with bloody hands and carrying a fake knife.

Pts were later asked to identify the man out of a set of 50 photos

Findings/conclusions-

49% in The low-anxiety condition correctly identified the man, just 33% in the high-anxiety condition
Weapon focus theory argues this is because EW attention is focused on the weapon as it is the blatant source of anxiety

Question 2

Yuille and Cutshall (1986) - Anxiety has a positive effect on EWT

Answer 2

Procedure-

Witnesses to a real-life armed robbery and shooting were interviewed 4-5 months after the incident. Their EWT was compared for accuracy against their actual police interviews at the time of the shooting.

Witnesses also rated their stress levels at the time of the incident on a scale of 1-10

Findings -

Witnesses were generally very accurate and only failed to recall very minor details.

Pts who reported higher levels of stress had 88% accurate recall, whilst less stressed pts had a recall accuracy of 75%

Question 3

Explanation for contradictory findings as to anxiety’s effect on EWT

Answer 3

Yerkes + Dodson (1908) - Inverted U theory -

Argued that relationship between performance and stress was curvilinear - a medium stress level was optimal for accurate recall.

Deffenbacher (1983) -

Found lower anxiety levels produced worse recall. Accuracy increases with anxiety up to an optimal point. Anxiety over this optimal point sees a drastic decline in EWT accuracy.

Question 4

❌Johnson and Scott may have tested surprise rather than anxiety

Answer 4

Pts may have experienced weapon focus not because of fear or anxiety - but because of the surprise they felt at seeing a weapon in such an incongruous setting.

Pickel (1998) replaced the handgun with strange objects such as raw chicken - EWT accuracy was the poorest for highly unusual items.

Weakness as it suggests the weapons focus effect is not as a result of anxiety - therefore tells us nothing about the effects of anxiety on EWT

Question 5

❌field studies lack control of variables

Answer 5

Real life witnesses interviewed some time after the event - things may have happened to them that would affect their recall of the event such as witnessing another crime or experiencing a traumatic event.
EW may have also discussed the event, or read/seen media reports that influence their memory of the event (PED may have been active)
These extraneous variables may have affected recall over anxiety.

Question 6

❌inverted U theory is too simplistic and therefore limited

Answer 6

Anxiety is difficult to measure - has many behavioural, emotional, cognitive, and physical aspects.

Inverted U theory only accounts for observable anxiety (physical) and links it to poor performance.

Fails to account for other factors such as the extreme emotional terror that one may experience witnessing a crime of this nature, and the effect that these factors may have on accuracy of memory.

Question 7

❌demand characteristics may affect lab studies

Answer 7

Pts in a lab study are aware that they are in one, and are aware that the procedure has a purpose.
The Pts may give responses that they feel are helpful to the researcher.
Means that in lab studies, researchers have no way of knowing if they are actually measuring the accuracy of EWT as a result of anxiety.
Weakens the validity of the study.