Factors affecting eyewitness testimony-Anxiety Flashcards
What did Johnson and Scott research?
The negative effect of anxiety on recall
What experiment did Johnson and Scott carry out?
They led participants to believe they were taking part in a lab experiment and while seated, an argument was held in an adjacent room. In the ‘low anxiety’ condition a man walked through carrying a pen but in the ‘high anxiety’ condition a man held a paper knife covered in blood and they heard breaking glass. When participants had to pick out the man from a set of 50 photos, 49% of participants in the low anxiety condition could identify him but only 33% in the high anxiety group could recognise him.
What experiment did Yuille and Cutshall carry out?
They did a study on real-life witnesses of a shooting and they were interviewed 4-5 months after the shooting. These were compared to the original interviews and accuracy was determined by the correct details remembered. They were also asked to report how stressed they felt at the time of the incident and if they had emotional problems since. It found that participants that reported the highest levels of stress were 88% accurate compared to only 75% in the less stressed group.
How can the contradictory findings be explained?
Yerkes and Dodson said that said the relationship between anxiety and performance i san inverted u, meaning there is an optimum amount of stress for memory.
What are the strengths of anxiety as a factor affecting eyewitness testimony?
There is scientific credibility from lab studies, increasing the reliability of the ideas.
What are the weaknesses of anxiety as a factor affecting eyewitness testimony?
Weapon focus may not be relevent as Pickel repeated the experiment using raw chicken and the accuracy was lower with weird objects, meaning it could be down to surprise.
Field studies can lack control as there may be post event discussion or extraneous variables that affect the responses.
There are ethical issues as they didn’t give permission and the belief a man was holding a knife may cause psychological problems.
Anxiety is difficult to define and measure and the inverted u only accounts for the physical performance, ignoring the cognitive and emotional aspects.
Demand characteristics may be present in lab studies, meaning participants will act as they think they are expected to.
