Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Anxiety

Question 1

Anxiety

Answer 1

has a strong emotional and physical effect but it is not clear whether it makes eyewitness recall better or worse. Physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness

Question 2

What did Johnson and Scott do?

Answer 2

• participants sat in a waiting room and heard an argument in the next room
• in the low anxiety condition a man walked through the waiting room carrying a pen with grease on his hands
• in the high anxiety condition, the same argument was heard with glass breaking and the man walked out with a knife covered in blood

Question 3

What did Johnson and Scott find?

Answer 3

• 49% of the participants who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him correctly
• for the high anxiety groups, only 33% were able to identify him correctly

Question 4

what did Johnson and Scott conclude?

Answer 4

• the tunnel theory of memory argues that a witness’s attention narrows to focus of a weapon, because it is a source of anxiety

Question 5

Anxiety has a negative effect on recall

Answer 5

Johnson and Scott

Question 6

Anxiety has a positive effect on recall

Answer 6

Yullie snd Cutshall

Question 7

what did Yullie and Cutshall do?

Answer 7

• conducted a study of a real-life shooting in a gun shop
• the shop owner shot the thief dead
• 13 witnesses were interviewed 4-5 months after the incident and compared with their original police interview
• witnesses were asked how stressed they were

Question 8

What did Yullie and Cutshall find?

Answer 8

• the witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and were little changes in their accounts after 5 months
• participants who reported the highest level of stress were most accurate
• 88% compared to 75% who were less stressed

Question 9

Flight or fight response

Answer 9

is triggered when anxiety creates physiological arousal within the body which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become more aware of cues in the situation

Question 10

What is a weakness of Loftus and Palmer’s research?

Answer 10

• lacks ecological validity

Question 11

Why does Loftus and Palmer lack ecological validity?

Answer 11

• the participants watched a video of a car crash and witnessed the car crash from start to finish. However, in reports of car accidents witnesses rarely see the whole event as they are either directly involved or only see a small part of the event occurring in their peripheral vision

Question 12

what does Loftus and Palmer’s lack of ecological validity demonstrate?

Answer 12

experimental reductionism and thus their results do not reflect everyday car accidents as psychologists are unable to conclude if the effect of leading questions are the same outside the laboratory and therefore tells us very little about how leading questions affect eye witness testimonies in cases or real accidents or crimes