Factors affecting EWT ; Anxiety Flashcards
What is anxiety ?
A state of emotional and physical arousal; increase HR, sweatiness and thoughts and feelings of tension.
How does anxiety have a negative effect on recall ?
It creates physiological arousal which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.
Researchers ; anxiety has a negative effect on recall
Johnson and scott (1976)
Research ; studying anxiety and EWT
Ppt’s were led to believe they were going to take part in a lab study.
They were seated in a waiting room and ppt heard and argument.
what were the two conditions:
Low anxiety and high anxiety condition
What happened in the low anxiety condition ?
A man walked through the waiting are , carrying a pen and with grease on his hands.
Other ppt’s overheard the same heated arguement, but this time accompanied by the sound of glass breaking
What happened in the high anxiety condition ?
The man walked out the room, holding a paper knife that was covered in blood.
Findings from negative effect ; low anxiety condition
Ppt’s later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos ; 49% of ppt’s who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him.
Findings from the high anxiety condition ;
Ppt’s who had seen the man holding the blood-covered knife was 33%.
What does the tunnel theory of memory argue ?
It argues that witness’s attention narrows to focus on a weapon , because it is a source of anxiety
How does anxiety have a positive effect on EWT ?
The stress of witnessing a crime creates anxiety through physiological arousal. The fight or flight response is triggered which increases alertness and improves memory.
Researchers who were involved in the positive effect of recall ;
Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
Procedure of research ; positive effect
> A study was conducted of a real-life shooting in a gun-shop in vancouver, Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead.
Interviews were held 4-5 months after the incident and these compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shooting.
Witnesses were asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident,using a 7 point scale and were asked if they had any emotional problems since the event.
Findings of the research ; positive effect on recall
-Witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount of accuracy after 5 months
-There were only some details that were less accurate (colour of items,age,weight )
-PPTS who reported highest levels of stress were more accurate (88% compared to 75%)
condrdictory research
