Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony: Anxiety

Question 1

Anxiety

Answer 1

Has strong emotional and physical effects. Prevents from paying attention to important cues so worse recall

Question 2

Having -ve effect on recall (Johnson & Scott) PROCEDURE

Answer 2

Led participants to think they were going to take part in a lab exp. While seated in waiting room, they heard a row in next room. A man then walked through the waiting area carrying a pen with grease on his hands (low anxiety condition). Other participants heard the same row but also breaking glass. A man walked out of the room holding a paper knife covered in blood

Question 3

Having -ve effect on recall (Johnson & Scott) FINDINGS

Answer 3

49% of people were able to identify the man carrying the pen in a set of 50 photos. 33% were able to identify the man holding the knife. Tunnel theory says witness focus on the weapon as it is a source of anxiety.

Question 4

Having +ve effect on recall (Yuille and Cutshall) PROCEDURES

Answer 4

Real life shooting in gun shop in Canada. Shop owner shot thief dead. 13 witnesses. Interviews held 4-5 months after incident and were compared with original police interviews made at shooting time. Witnesses were asked if they felt stressed at the time and if they had an emotional stuff afterwards

Question 5

Having +ve effect on recall (Yuille and Cutshall) FINDINGS

Answer 5

Accurate in their accounts and little change in accuracy after 5 months: age, height, colour, etc. High stressed people were most accurate: 88%. Supports idea that high anxiety draws our attention to external cues through the ‘fight or flight’ response, where such attention may have given us an advantage by increasing our chances of escaping.

Question 6

Yerkson-Dodson Law

Answer 6

Relationship between emotional arousal and performance is inverted U. Deffenbacher applied law to EWT. Lower anxiety levels produce lower levels of recall accuracy. But memory becomes more accurate anxiety rises. Optimum anxiety level is max accuracy. If any more stress then event recall suffers drastic decline.

Question 7

Weakness

Answer 7

Weapon focus effect may be irrelevant. Tests surprise rather than anxiety. Surprised at seeing the weapon, not scared. Pickel did exp with scissors, hand gun and raw chicken. EW accuracy was poor in unusual conditions: raw chicken in hair dressing salon.

Question 8

Weakness

Answer 8

Field studies lack control. Interview takes place after the event and in the meantime lots of things would have happened: PED, media and researchers have no control over that. These confounding variables may be responsible for recall accuracy.

Question 9

Weakness

Answer 9

Ethical issues. Creating anxiety is risky meaning it’s unethical as it may lead to psychological harm. This is why real life studies are so beneficial: psychologists can interview people who have already witnessed a real life event so there is no need to create it

Question 10

Weakness

Answer 10

Inverted U explanation is too simplistic. Anxiety is hard to measure accurately as it has many elements: cognitive, emotional, behavioural and physical. But the explanation only talks about physical.

Question 11

Weakness

Answer 11

Lab studies show filmed crimes so participants would know what they are going to be asked.