effects of anxiety on EWT Flashcards
Does anxiety enhance or hinder EWT?
-both
What was the procedure of Loftus and Burns (1982)’s study?
-participants were shown a violent version of a crime where a boy is shot in the face.
What study included participants being shown a violent crime where a boy is shot in the face?
Loftus and Burns (1982)
What were the findings of Loftus and Burns (1982) study?
-Participants had significantly impaired recall for events leading up to the violent incident, suggesting that anxiety has a negative effect of EWT
What was the procedure of Christianson and Hubinette (1993)’s study?
-58 victims of a real bank robbery were questioned
What study involved the questioning of the 58 victims of a real bank robbery ?
Christiansen and Hubbinette (1993)
What the findings of Christianson and Hubbinette (1993)
Those that had been threatened were more accurate in their recall compared to those that were just onlookers.
This continued to be true 15 months later
This suggests that anxiety has a positive effect on EWT
What was the procedure of the Johnson and Scott (1976)’s study?
-participants in a lab setting overheard/witnessed an argument in another room
-there were two conditions:
-greasy pen- participants watched someone walk out the room after the argument with a greasy pen
-bloody knife- someone walked out the room after the argument with a bloody knife
-participants were then given a photo recognition task where they were given fifty photos and had to identify the correct man.
What study investigated weapon focus effect?
Johnson and Scott’s greasy pen/bloody knife experiment
What were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s (1976) study?
-the greasy pen condition showed 49% accuracy
-the bloody knife condition showed 33% accuracy
-this suggests that anxiety has a negative effect on EWT
What is the ‘weapon focus effect’?
-the anxiety of seeing a weapon focuses all the attention on to it and away from other aspects causing less EWT accuracy
What was the procedure of Yuille and Cutshall’s (1986) study?
-Witnesses to a real life shooting were interviewed 4-5 months later and their accounts were compared to their original ones
What study involved comparing the accounts of witnesses to a real-life shooting to their new ones 4-5 months later?
Yuille and Cutshall 1986
What were the findings of Yuille and Cutshall (1986)’s study?
-Higher stress- 88% accuracy
-Lower stress- 75% accuracy
-Suggests that anxiety has a positive effect on recall
What did Yerkes and Dodson propose?
Yerkes-Dodson Law- suggested that the relationship between emotional arousal and performance can be portrayed as an inverted U shape.
-Emotional arousal is anxiety and performance is recall of the event
-For recall, moderate anxiety is optimum. anxiety will positively impact EWT to a point but too much will negatively impact it
