Factors affecting EWT: Anxiety

Question 1

Define anxiety

Answer 1

• state of emotional and physical arousal
• emotions include: worried thoughts and tense feelings
• physical changes
• increased heart rate/sweatiness
• anxiety = normal reaction to stressful situations but can affect ACCURACY of EWT

Question 2

Anxiety up, memory down: procedure

Answer 2

Johnson and Scott (1976)

• P’s believed it was lab study
• seated in waiting room
• heard argument in next room
• in ‘low anxiety’ condition = man walked out holding pen with grease on hands
• other P’s overheard same heated argument but with sound of breaking glass
• ‘high anxiety’ condition = man walked out with paper knife covered in blood

Question 3

Anxiety up, memory down: findings

Answer 3

• P’s picked man out from set of 50 photos
• 49% who saw PEN man = could identify him
• 33% could identify blood knife man
• tunnel theory of memory = witness’s attention narrows o focus on weapon (WEAPON FOCUS EFFECT) because it is a source of anxiety

Question 4

Anxiety up, memory up: procedure

Answer 4

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

• based on real life Vancouver shooting in gun shop
• 13/21 witnesses took part in study
• interviews held 4-5 months after incident then compared with OG police interviews
• witnesses asked to rate how stressed they were using 7-point scale
• asked if they had emotional problems ever since eg: sleeplessness

Question 5

Anxiety up, memory up: findings

Answer 5

• witnesses = very ACCURATE in accounts
• colour of items/age/height/weight = less accurate
• P’s who reported highest levels of stress were most accurate — 88% compared to 75% for less-stressed group

Question 6

Contradictory findings: anxiety

Answer 6

Yerkes and Dodson (1908)

• lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of accuracy
• memory becomes MORE accurate as level of anxiety increases
• at one point though: optimal level of anxiety is reached = max point of accuracy
• if EW experiences any more stress than this, their recall of the event decreases drastically

Question 7

Evaluation: Ethical issues (negative)

Answer 7

• creating anxiety in P’s = very risky because can cause psychological harm purely from research
• real life studies = so beneficial because P’s have already suffered trauma so no need to CREATE it