The Effects of Anxiety on the Accuracy of EWT

Question 1

Anxiety is a state of what?

Answer 1

Emotional and physical arousal, with worried thoughts and feelings of tension, increase in heart rate and sweating.

Question 2

How does anxiety have a negative effect on EWT?

Answer 2

Prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.

Question 3

How does anxiety have positive effects on EWT?

Answer 3

Physiological arousal triggers flight or fight response which increases alertness and improves our memory.

Question 4

Is the flight or fight response positive or negative effect on recall?

Answer 4

Positive

Question 5

Is the weapon focus effect positive or negative effect on recall?

Answer 5

Negative

Question 6

What is the positive effect of the flight-or-fight response?

Answer 6

Makes you more alert to surroundings and increases accuracy of EWT as you are paying attention to the person committing the crime and the environment

Question 7

What research is there to support the flight-or-fight response?

Answer 7

Yullie and Cutshall.

Question 8

What did Yullie and Cutshall do?

Answer 8

Investigated a real-life gun shop robbery where a person was killed and another injured.

Question 9

What was the procedure of what Yullie and Cutshall did?

Answer 9

13 participants and 21 original witnesses agreed to a follow up interview with the researchers 4-5 months later.

Question 10

What did Yullie and Cutshall find?

Answer 10

Those who were close to the robbery were more accurate than those were further away.

Question 11

What is the weapon focus effect?

Answer 11

Loftus suggested that anxiety is an issue for crimes with a weapon.
Seeing a weapon focuses all the attention in the weapon itself and do not see peripheral details such as what else is going in and what the perpetrator looks like.

Question 12

What research is there to support the weapon focus effect?

Answer 12

Johnson and Scott

Question 13

What did Johnson and Scott do?

Answer 13

Invited participants to a lab experiment and told them to wait In the reception.

Question 14

What happened in the no-weapon condition in Johnson and Scott’s experiment?

Answer 14

Participants heard a conversation in the lab and a person walked out holding a pen with his hands covered in grease.

Question 15

What happened in the weapon condition in Johnson and Scott’s experiment?

Answer 15

Participants heard an argument which glass breaking and a chair being thrown. Someone came out holding a bloodied letter opener.

Question 16

What were the results of Johnson and Scott’s experiment?

Answer 16

The witnesses were accurate to 49% of the time in the No-weapon condition, and 33% of the time in weapon condition.

Question 17

What were participants asked to do after the conditions in Johnson and Scott’s experiment?

Answer 17

Identify the person from 50 photos

Question 18

What does the yerkes-Dodson effect suggest?

Answer 18

Arousal has a negative effect on performance when it is very low or very high, but moderate levels are beneficial.

Question 19

Who suggested the yerkes-Dodson effect?

Answer 19

Deffenbacher.

Question 20

What does Deffenbacher argue about the yerkes-Dodson effect?

Answer 20

Can explain the inconsistent findings from studies.

Question 21

What does Deffenbacher’s meta-Analysis suggest?

Answer 21

His meta-analysis of 21 studies found that 10 were linked to high arousal and low accuracy and 11 linked to low arousal and low accuracy.
Suggests this effect might be the best explanation for results.

Question 22

Critics have suggested that the weapon focus effect might increase the accuracy of EWT. What evidence is there to support this?

Answer 22

Research by Christanson and Hubinette found that victims of violent crimes were more accurate in their recall of crime scene information than victims of non-violent crimes.

Question 23

Critics have suggested that the weapon focus effect might increase the accuracy of EWT. What explanation is there to support this?

Answer 23

Contradicts the idea of the weapon focus effect.
Suggests it may not hold validity.
Although police officers should be aware of the potential impact a weapon has on accuracy of EWT.
Carful nit to disregard the witnesses statement.

Question 24

A problem with studying anxiety is that there may be extraneous variables associated with emotional sensitivity. What evidence is there to support this?

Answer 24

Bothwell et al found that people who were considered ‘stable’ produced more accurate responses as anxiety levels increased, whereas those labelled neurotic had lower accuracy as anxiety levels increased.

Question 25

A problem with studying anxiety is that there may be extraneous variables associated with emotional sensitivity. What explanation is there to support this?

Answer 25

There might be an alternative explanation for the results.
Studies into anxiety may lack internal validity as it is difficult to be sure we are measuring anxiety and not measuring the influence of personality factors.

Question 26

There is research to suggest that anxiety may not play a role but instead surprise may be a more prominent factor. What evidence is there to support this claim?

Answer 26

Pickel asked participants to watch a their enter a hairdressing salon carrying scissors, a gun or a raw chicken. He found that identification was least accurate in the raw chicken condition.

Question 27

There is research to suggest that anxiety may not play a role but instead surprise may be a more prominent factor. What explanation is there to support this claim?

Answer 27

May be an alternative explanation for the weapon focus effect. Findings suggest that unusualness rather than threat captures our attention.
Affects our memory for the rest of the event.
Johnson and Scott’s research may lack internal validity and not tell us the effect on EWT.

Question 28

Fazey and Hardy suggested a more complex relationship between anxiety and performance than the Yerkes Dodson model. What evidence is there to support this?

Answer 28

Catastrophe theory predicts that when physiological arousal increases beyond a certain level, performance does decrease, equally as the cognitive anxiety increases performance falls dramatically.

Question 29

Fazey and Hardy suggested a more complex relationship between anxiety and performance than the Yerkes Dodson model. What explanation is there to support this?

Answer 29

Alternative explanation to the Yerkes Dodson model that takes a more holistic approach to explaining the effects on EWT. Further research should try tackle measuring cognitive anxiety and its effects.