Factors Affecting Eyewitness Testimony: Anxiety

Question 1

What are the effects of anxiety?

Answer 1

Research has shown that anxiety can have both a negative and positive effect on recall

Question 2

Research on negative effect on recall

Answer 2

Johnson and Scott:
Anxiety causes physiological arousal which prevents us paying attention to important cues
Weapon focus study:
P’s thought that they were participating in lab study and whilst waiting heard an argument in which there were 2 conditions:
1. Man walks out with grease on hands holding pen
2. Hear glass break, man walks out with paper knife
=only 33% of knife people could identify man out of pictures, compared to 49% pen

Question 3

Research on positive effect on recall

Answer 3

Yuille and cutshall: fight or flight response triggered which improves our memory
Procedure: RL shooting in Canada in which gun shop owner shot thief and some witnesses agreed to take part. Interviews held 4 months after and compared to police ones
= some details inaccurate but on whole those who rated it as finding it as a more stressful event were more accurate (88%)

Question 4

Contradictory findings

Answer 4

Yerkes-Dodson law= both lead to poor recall

Question 5

Evaluation

Answer 5

Weapon focus may not be relevant
Field studies sometimes lack control
Ethical issues