Eyewitness Testimony: Anxiety Flashcards
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a state of emotional and physical arousal, involving feelings of worry and tension, often accompanied by physical changes, e.g., an increased heart rate. It is a normal reaction to stressful situations, but can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Effect on recall
Anxiety can either have a positive or negative effect on recall.
Who studied the positive effect of anxiety on recall?
Yuille and Cutshall - Fight or Flight Response
Who studied the negative effect of anxiety on recall?
Johnson and Scott - Weapon Focus Effect
Yuille and Cutshall - Aim
To investigate the effect of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in a real-life crime and to see whether high levels of anxiety improve or impair the accuracy of recall.
Yuille and Cutshall - Procedure
Real-life event:
- The study was based on a real-life shooting in Vancouver, Canada.
- A gun shop owner shot and killed a thief in front of witnesses.
- There were originally 21 witnesses who were interviewed by the police but 13 witnesses, aged between 15 and 32, who agreed to take part in Yuille and Cutshall’s follow-up research interview.
Interview process:
- Researchers conducted interviews with the witnesses around 4-5 months after the event.
- They were asked to recount details of the event, including descriptions of the people, the crime scene, and the events leading up to and after the shooting.
- The interviews were compared to the original police statements taken immediately after the event.
- They gave their account of the incident, and then they were asked several questions, including two misleading questions. Half of the group was asked if they saw a broken headlight on the getaway car, the other half was asked if they saw a yellow panel on the car (the panel was actually blue).
Anxiety measurement:
- The witnesses were asked to rate their level of stress at the time of the event on a 7-point scale.
- They were also asked if they had experienced any emotional problems since the event, such as sleep disturbances.
Yuille and Cutshall - Findings
- The witnesses were very accurate in their recall, even after 4-5 months — with over 80% accuracy when compared to their original police statements
- All of the major details of their reports remained the same, only minor details, such as estimates of age, height and weight had changed.
- Witnesses who reported higher levels of stress at the time of the event were more accurate (about 88% accuracy) compared to those who reported lower stress levels (about 75% accuracy).
- Furthermore, misleading questions had no significant effect on accuracy.
Yuille and Cutshall - Conclusion
High levels of anxiety in a real-life setting can enhance the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, suggesting that emotional arousal may improve memory recall rather than impair it.
Yuille and Cutshall - Strength
Yuille and Cutshall - Strength
Yuille and Cutshall - Weakness
Yuille and Cutshall - Weakness
Johnson and Scott - Aim
Johnson and Scott - Procedure
Johnson and Scott - Findings
Johnson and Scott - Conclusion
Johnson and Scott - Strength
Johnson and Scott - Strength
Johnson and Scott - Weakness
Johnson and Scott - Weakness
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Procedure
Johnson and Scott invited participants to a laboratory where they were told to wait in the reception area. The receptionist excused herself leaving the participant alone. In the ‘no weapon’ group the participant overheard a conversation about equipment failure then an individual left the laboratory passing the participant with a a pen in hand and his hands covered in grease. In the ‘weapon group’ the participants heard an altercation and the sound of breaking glass and chairs falling then an individual left running into the reception area holding a bloody letter opener. Both groups were then shown 50 photographs and asked to identify the person who had left the laboratory. The participants were informed that the suspect may, or may not be present in the photographs.
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Findings
Those who had witnessed the man holding a pen correctly identified the suspect 49% of the time, compared to those who had witnessed the man holding a knife, who correctly identified the target 33% of the time. The participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target, a phenomenon known as the weapon focus effect. Therefore, the anxiety associated with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Conclusion
Anxiety does have a negative effect on recall.
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Strength
High internal validity as variables were controlled.
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Weakness
Ethical issues as the study induced anxiety. Ppts were deceived about the nature of the experiment and not protected from harm.
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Weakness
Case study by Yuille and Cutshall contradict the results of this experiment.
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - Johnson and Scott (1976) - Weapon Focus Effect - Weakness
Low ecological validity as although ppts were waiting in the reception area outside the laboratory, they may have anticipated that something was about to happen which could have affected the accuracy of their judgements.
Anxiety has a positive effect on recall - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) - Fight or flight - Strength
High internal validity as it looks at real witnesses and events.
Anxiety has a positive effect on recall - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) - Fight or flight - Weakness
The study is not replicable nor generalizable.
Anxiety has a positive effect on recall - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) - Fight or flight - Weakness
Because the eyewitnesses’ safety was in danger, this could be a case of flashbulb memory and therefore not comparable to Loftus & Palmer’s original study.
Yerkes-Dodson Law
- Deffenbacher applied the Yerkes-Dodson Law to EWT.
- The idea is that memory increases as stress increases but once stress reaches an optimum level, memory begins to decrease.
Anxiety - Weakness
- Weapon Focus Effect.
- May test surprise rather than anxiety.
- Weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWTs.
Anxiety - Weakness
- Yuille and Cutshall.
- Field studies sometimes lack control.
- Extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall.
- Low reliability.
Anxiety - Weakness
- There are ethical issues.
- Unethical as may cause psychological harm purely for the purpose of research.
- Real-life issues are beneficial as people who have witnessed real-life events are being interviewed. No need to create this situation.
- However, Yuille and Cutshall was more ethical.
Anxiety - Weakness
- The Yerkes-Dodson Law is too simplistic.
- Inverted-U theory explanation is too simplistic.
- Anxiety is difficult to measure as it contains many cognitive elements where the inverted-u states that only 1 of these is linked to poor psychological performance.
Anxiety - Weakness
- Demand characteristics operate in lab studies of anxiety.
- ‘Screw you, please you’ mentality can affect your results therefore affecting the reliability of the experiment.
