lesson 13 - EWT Stress & Weapon Focus SCODA

Question 1

A01

Answer 1

Stress is body’s reaction (emotional, physical, mental) to any change that requires response
Yerke Dodson suggest stress and EWT accuracy is inverted U shape….
Factor that can lead to high stress is the presence of a weapon. Weapon focus is an eyewitness’s concentration on a weapon while excluding the other details of the crime like offender face. Tunnel theory is when attention is said to focus on weapon and peripherals become less focused.

Question 2

Para 1 - stress

Answer 2

Supporting research on the high arousal phase of the inverted U is Valentine and Mesout who got a ‘scary person’ to jump out in front of participants, blocking their path, touring the London Dungeons. They found that 17% of those who scored above the median state anxiety correctly identified the scary person from a 9 person photograph line up, whereas 75% of those who scored below the median state anxiety correctly identified. High anxiety reduces the accuracy of EWT but the study neglects to consider the influence of a weapon.

Question 3

Para 2 - dif type of weapon

Answer 3

P: Loftus investigated weapon focus
E: found more eye fixations and longer duration of fixation on gun compared to chequebook. there was 40% correct line-up identification when customer had chequebook compared to 11% when holding gun to cashier
E: this supports that weapon focus impacts EWT.
HOWEVER the study used a slide show to show the crime and so lacks ecological validity and can’t be applied to influence of stress and weapon focus in real life

Question 4

Para 3 - all types of stress?

Answer 4

P: steblay did a meta-analysis
E: that found lower a lower accuracy of EWT with weapon presence where stress varied as some studies had videos (moderate stress) and some had staged events (high stress)
E: suggests reduced accuracy of EWT isnt from stress of weapon but the shift in attention to the weapon itself

Question 5

Para 4 - usual object

Answer 5

P: pickel et al investigated whether the weapon focus was due to the unusualness of the object or the threat it posed
E: participants shown footage of man approaching hairdresser receptionist with object and then she handed him money. Conditions with least accurate EWT were high surprise (chicken) opposed to high threat (scissors).
E: shows weapon focus is more due to presence of unusual objects as opposed to the stress from them.
HOWEVER an other explanation is that
personality is an individual difference which impacts how stress affects memory
Bothwell et all found stable participants had rising levels of EWT as stress increased and neurotic pps accuracy decreased as stress increased