EWT and Anxiety

Question 1

What was Loftus & Burns’s research about?

Answer 1

1. P’s shown violent film where a boy was shot in the face had less accurate EWT than those shown a non-violent version.
2. P’s are thought to focus on the weapon rather than all other incoming information eg: details of face, clothing, surroundings etc. So do not encode all relevant information at the time of the event.
3. But in real life/naturalistic situations we get different results.

Question 2

What was Christianson & Hubinette (1993)?

Answer 2

1. Questioned 110 witnesses who had witnessed genuine bank robberies.
2. Some witnesses were onlookers who happened to be in the bank at the time, some were victims – bank employees who had been directly threatened in the robberies.
3. Victims had more accurate recall than onlookers
   Victims recalled more detail about clothing, behaviour, weapons etc.
4. Superior victim recall was evident even after 15 months.

Question 3

Outline the AO3 points about EWT

Answer 3

AO3: Anxiety can have a positive and negative effect on the accuracy of EWT

AO3: It is the level of arousal that is the determining factor

Question 4

What did Christianson and Hubinette conclude after the research?

Answer 4

Christianson and Hubinette concluded that people are good at remembering highly stressful events if they occur in real life rather than in a laboratory.