Memory : Eyewitness Testimeony - Anxiety

Question 1

Whats anxiety?

Answer 1

An unpleasant emotional state where we greaser something bad is going to happen (often in stressful situations. The anxiety is accompanied with physiological arousal (increased heart rate, shallow breathing, sweating, etc)

Question 2

Negative effect of anxiety

Answer 2

Prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall declines

Question 3

Johnson + Scott (1976) negative effect - Aim

Answer 3

To investigate weapon focus

Question 4

Johnson + Scott (1976) negative effect - Mehtod

Answer 4

Ps told they were waiting to take part in a study and heard an argument break out in the next room.
Low anxiety condition - man walked out of room with greased pen
High anxiety condition - glass shattered and man walked out with a bloody knife

Question 5

Johnson + Scott (1976) negative effect - Findings

Answer 5

Ps had to pick out the man from 50 photos
Low anxiety - 49% identified correctly
High anxiety - 33% identified correctly

Question 6

Johnson + Scott (1976) negative effect - Results

Answer 6

The tunnel theory states that a witness’ attention focuses on a weapon because its a source of anxiety (weapon focus)

Question 7

Johnson + Scott (1976) negative effect - Advs

Answer 7

• supportive evidence - Valentine + Mesout (2009) has Ps describe a Pierson they encountered in the Labyrinth of Horror (London). Ps split into high and low anxiety based on heart rate and post event questionnaires.17% high anxiety identified actor in line up vs 75% low anxiety.
• high ecological validity - conducted in real life setting

Question 8

Johnson + Scott (1976) negative effect - Disadvs

Answer 8

• Low construction validity (may have been measuring effect of surprise on EWT vs anxiety) - Pickel (1998) conducted an experiment in a hair salon with 4 conditions where a confederate walked in holding a
- handgun
- scissors
- wallet
- raw chicken
DV = accuracy of eyewitness recall. EWT accuracy was significantly poorer in the unusual conditions (chicken + gun), suggesting the weapon focus effect is due to surprise the than anxiety
• ignores individual differences (see Deffenbacher)
• too reductionist (see Deffenbacher)

Question 9

Whats the positive effect of anxiety

Answer 9

Physiological spousal triggers fight or flight response and increases alertness, therefore improves the accuracy of EWT

Question 10

Yuille + Cutshall (1986) positive effect - Aim

Answer 10

To investigate anxiety’s effects t on the accuracy of EWT

Question 11

Yuille + Cutshall (1986) positive effect - Method

Answer 11

A real life shooting in a. Gun shop in Canada where the shop owner shot the thief dead., 13/21 witnesses took park. Interviews took part 4-5 months after and were compared to original police reports. Accuracy was determined by the number of correct details recalled in each interview. Ps were also asked how stressed they felt on a scale of 1-7 to assess anxiety

Question 12

Yuille + Cutshall (1986) positive effect - Fidnings

Answer 12

Ps w high stress - 88% accurate recall
Ps w low stress - 75% accurate recall

Question 13

Yuille + Cutshall (1986) positive effect - Results

Answer 13

Anxiety doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of EWT in real world context

Question 14

Yuille + Cutshall (1986) positive effect - Advs

Answer 14

• supporting evidence - Christianson + Hubinette (1993) interviewed 58 witnesses from real back robberies in Sweden. Recall accuracy was >75% across all witnesses. Victims (most directly involved so anxiety assumed highest) had best recall, then bank workers (assumed high stress as directly involved) recall and bystanders (assumed low anxiety as indirectly involved) was lowest
• high ecological validity as conducted in real life setting

Question 15

Yuille + Cutshall (1986) positive effect - Disadvs

Answer 15

• low internal validity as Ps may have discusses event between themselves or read newspaper articles while some may have not (confounding variables affecting recall)
• field experiment so lacked controls
• ignores individual differences (see Deffenbacher)
• too reductionist (see Deffenbacher)

Question 16

Yerkes Dodson Law

Answer 16

(see notes for diagram)

Anxiety can have nothing to do a positive and negative affect in accuracy of EWT. Without motivation tension, no reason to act. Too much stress decreases performance - especially is cognitive/ nervous breakdown s triggered

Question 17

Deffenbacher et al (1983) - Aim

Answer 17

To investigate anxiety and Yerkes-Dodson’s Law’s relationship

Question 18

Deffenbacher et al (1983) - Method

Answer 18

Reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings on the effect of anxiety, but all fir the Yerke-Dodson law - when we wittiness a crime, we become emotionally and physiologically aroused, which manifests an anxiety and fight or flight response

Question 19

Deffenbacher et al (1983) - Findings

Answer 19

Recall is optimal when the level of anxiety is optimal, outside this, recall is reduced

Question 20

Deffenbacher et al (1983) - Advs

Answer 20

• ecologically valid (takes into account multiple studies where many were real life situations/ locations)

Question 21

Deffenbacher et al (1983) - Disadvs

Answer 21

• ignores individual differences (emotional sensitivity) - Bothwell (1987) tested Ps for neutrons is and labelled them as emotionally stable or neurotic.
Stable Ps → as anxiety increased, so did EWT accuracy
Unstable Ps → as anxiety increases, EWT accuracy decreased
Deffenbacher suggests that modest effect sizes seen in anxiety studies may be due to averaging out sensitive and non-sensitive Ps and maybe there’s no universal explanation of the effect of anxiety die to individual differences - limitation of nomothetic approach
• tooo reductionist (anxiety’s difficult to measure, so lab experiments are often too reductionist). Anxiety is made up of several elements → cognitive, emotional, behavioural, physiological. The inverted U theory only considers physical arousal - only one aspect of a complicated behaviour