factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Question 1

anxiety

Answer 1

anxiety is a physiological response to external pressures characterised by an increased heart ate ,in increased sweat production.

anxiety can have either a positive or negative effect on the accuracy of ewt

Question 2

johnson and scott(1976)

Answer 2

demonstrated that anxiety has a negative effect on the naccuracy of ewt

the high anxiety condition overheard a heated argument in the neighbouring room ,with the sound of smashing glass and a man walking through the waiting room with a bloody knife as apposed to a greasy pen in the low -anxiety condition

when asked to identify the man , participants in the high-anxiety condition experienced 16% lower rates of accurate recall, compared to the lowa nxiety condition.

This may be explained by the tunnel theory of memory and the weapon focus
effect, where our attention is drawn towards the weapon as a source of anxiety

Question 3

The positive effect of anxiety on the accuracy of EWt

Answer 3

demonstrated by Yuille and Cutshall
(1986), who followed up 13 eyewitnesses, 5 months after a real-life shooting at a shop in Canada.
The researchers found that eyewitness accuracy was still high after this period, with an 11% higher
accuracy of recall for those eyewitnesses who ranked their anxiety as ‘high’ (compared to ‘low’) at
the time of the shooting and using a 7-point anxiety scale.

There were, however, small discrepancies
over estimates of height, weight and clothing. This supports the idea that heightened anxiety draws
our attention to external cues through the ‘fight or flight’ response, where such attention may have
given us an evolutionary advantage by increasing our chances of escaping and survival.

Question 4

evaluation

Answer 4

One strength of this study is that it had high ecological validity compared with lab studies which tend to control variables and use student populations as research participants.

Question 5

evaluation

Answer 5

One weakness of this study was that there was an extraneous variable. The witnesses who experienced the highest levels of stress where actually closer to the event (the shooting) and this may have helped with the accuracy of their memory recall.

Question 6

evaluation

Answer 6

Real world application: We can apply the Yerkes Dodson effect to predict that stressful incidents will lead to witnesses having relatively inaccurate memories as their anxiety levels would be above the optimum – We can avoid an over-reliance on eyewitness testimony that may have been impacted by anxiety.