Factors Affecting Accuracy Of EWT - Anxiety

Question 1

Anxiety

Answer 1

A state of emotional and physical arousal - a normal reaction to stress
Emotions => include worried thoughts + feelings of tension
Physical changes => increased heart rate and sweatiness

Question 2

Anxiety having negative effect on recall - weapon focus

Answer 2

Physiological arousal from anxiety prevents paying attention to important cues so recall is worse

Johnson and Scat (1976) - lab study in waiting room
P: pps either heard casual convo w/ man walking past them with pen + grease in hand OR heated argument glass breaking had bloody knife

F + C: Poorer recall (33%) of the man out of 50 pics in high anxiety vs 49% in low - tunnel theory of memory- enhanced memory for central events

Question 3

Unusualness not anxiety - AO3

Answer 3

LIMITATION
May not have tested anxiety in Johnson + Scott
Pickel (‘98) - experiment in hairdressers w/ scissors a handgun a wallet or chicken
EW accuracy was much poorer in high unusualness condition (chicken and handgun)

SUGGESTS weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rater than anxiety/threat so tells us nothing about anxiety effects

Question 4

Support for negative effects - AO3

Answer 4

STRENGHT

Valentine + Mesout (‘09) - used objective measures (heart rate to divide pps to high + low anxiety groups
=> anxiety disrupted pps ability to recall actor at London Dungeons
SUGGESTS high anxiety does negatively impact EW recall of stressful events

Question 5

Anxiety has positive effect on recall

Answer 5

Fight or flight increases alertness => may improve memory
P: Yuilie + Cutshall (‘86) - shooting at gun shop witnesses interviewed 4-5 mths after -> compared with original police interview
F + C: pps with reported higher stress were more accurate (88% v 75% of less stressed group)
SUGGESTS anxiety doesn’t make EW worse and may enhance it

Question 6

Support for positive effects - AO3

Answer 6

STRENGHT
Christianson + Hubinette (‘93) - interviewed 58 witnesses to bank robberies some involved (workers) or indirectly (bystanders)
Recall most accurate in direct victims
CONFIRMS from actual crime that anxiety enhances EW

Question 7

Counterpoint to Support for positive effects - AO3

Answer 7

LIMITATION
Christianson + Hubinette’s pps were interviewed months after event so no control over pps in intervening time - confounding variables
Lack of control could be responsible for these findings invalidating support

Question 8

Explaining contradicting findings

Answer 8

Yerkes and Dodson (‘08) - found relationship between emotional arousal + performance - inverted ‘U’ shape

• fight or flight response from anxiety
• lower levels cause lower recall accuracy and memory becomes more accurate as it increases
• BUT there’s an optimal anxiety w/ max accuracy
• any more arousal recall will decline

Question 9

Problems w/ inverted-U theory

Answer 9

Appears to be a reasonable explanation

• BUT: ignores anxiety’s cognitive, behavioural, emotional, and physical aspects + assumes only aspect linked to EWT
• The way we think about the stressful situation (cognitive) may be important