Eyewitness testimony - Anxiety

Question 1

What is anxiety, in terms of the eyewitness testimony?

Answer 1

• A state of emotional and physical arousal

Question 2

How does anxiety make recall worse, in terms of the eyewitness testimony?

Answer 2

• It creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us from paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.

Question 3

What research supports that anxiety negatively affects recall?

Answer 3

• Craig & Johnson (1976) investigated the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and face recognition
• Participants believed they were taking part in a lab study, there were two conditions:
  
  1. Low anxiety condition - While sitting in a waiting room, participants heard an argument in the next room and then saw a man walk past them carrying a pen with grease on their hands.
     2. High anxiety condition - While sitting in a waiting room, participants heard the same heated argument, but this time accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and then saw a man holding a paper-knife that was covered in blood.
• Participants later had to identify the man out from a set of 50 photos.
• 49% in the low-anxiety condition were able to identify him whilst only 33% in the high-anxiety condition were able to identify him.
• Tunnel theory of memory argues that a witness’s attention narrows to focus on a weapon because it is the source of anxiety.

Question 4

How does anxiety positively affect recall, in terms of eyewitness testimony?

Answer 4

• It creates physiological arousal in the body which triggers a fight or flight response which increases alertness.

Question 5

What research supports that anxiety positively affects recall?

Answer 5

• Yuille & Cutshall (1986) recorded and evaluated witness accounts of a real-life shooting in a gun shop in Canda.
• 13 / 21 witnesses took part in the study and interviews were held 4-5months after the incidents which were compared with the original police interviews at the time of the shooting.
• Accuracy was determined by the number of details repoted in each account. The witnesses were asked to rate how they felt at the time of the incident on a 7-point scale and whether they had any emotional problems since the event.
• They found that witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the ammount recalled after 5 months. Participants who repoted the highest level of stress were 88% accurate and participants who reported the lowest levels of stress were 75% accurate.
• This suggests that anxiety does not have any detrimental affect on the accuracy of eyewitness memory and sometimes enhances it.

Question 6

What contradictory research is there on the effects of anxiety, in terms of eyewitness testimony?

Answer 6

• Deffenbacher (1983) reviewed 21 studies of eyewitness testimony
• He used the Yerks-Dodson law to explain the findings:
  1. Low levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy.
  2. Higher levels of anxiety produce higher levels of recall accuracy.
  3. There is an optimal level of anxiety that produces maximum accuracy and if a person experiences any more arousal, then their recall suffers decline.

Question 7

(AO3) What is a strength of anxiety?

Answer 7

Research support for positive effects:

• Christianson & Hubainette (1993) - interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden in which some of the witnesses were directly involved and some were indirectly involved.
• Recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses and the direct victims, who were most anxious, were even more accurate.
• These findings from actual crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses and may even enhance it.

Question 8

(AO3) What is a weakness of anxiety?
(1)

Answer 8

Demand characteristics:

• Most lab studies show participants a filmed (usually staged) crime. Participants may become aware of the fact that they are watching a filmed crime for the study and figure out that they will be asked questions about what they have seen for the study.
• Participants could make their response more accurate because they want to be helpful so they pay more attention and listen to the instructions more carefully
• This is a limitation as it would decrease the validity of the study because it is not truly measuring the accuracy of EWT.

Question 9

(AO3) What is a weakness of anxiety?
(2)

Answer 9

Unusalness not Anxiety:

• The Johnson & Scott study on weapon focus may test surprise rather than anxiety ( surprised at what they saw rather than scared)
• Pickle (1998) conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet, or a raw chicken as items in a hairdressing salon in which eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions.
• This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimony.