EWT: anxiety Flashcards
(27 cards)
What is the main focus of research on the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimony?
Whether anxiety has a positive or negative effect on eyewitness recall.
What is weapon focus?
A phenomenon where anxiety causes attention to focus on a weapon, reducing witnesses’ recall for other details of the event.
Who conducted the classic weapon focus study in 1976?
Johnson and Scott.
What was the procedure in Johnson and Scott’s weapon focus study?
Participants in a lab study overheard an argument and saw either a man with a pen (low anxiety) or a man with a knife covered in blood (high anxiety).
What percentage of participants correctly identified the man with the pen in Johnson and Scott’s study?
49%
What percentage of participants correctly identified the man with the knife in Johnson and Scott’s study?
33%
What conclusion was drawn from Johnson and Scott’s study?
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall due to weapon focus.
What is the ‘fight or flight’ response and why may it be positive?
A physiological arousal response to stress - may increase alertness and improve memory.
Who conducted a study on recall after a real-life shooting in Vancouver?
Yuille and Cutshall.
How many witnesses took part in Yuille and Cutshall’s study?
13
How long after the event were witnesses interviewed in Yuille and Cutshall’s study?
4-5 months.
What was the accuracy of recall in Yuille and Cutshall’s study?
Very accurate
What effect did stress have on recall in Yuille and Cutshall’s study?
Witnesses with the highest stress were the most accurate.
What theory explains the contradictory findings on anxiety and recall?
The Yerkes-Dodson Law (inverted-U theory).
What does the Yerkes-Dodson Law suggest?
Recall is best at moderate levels of anxiety/arousal and worse at very low or very high levels.
What is a limitation of the Johnson and Scott study?
It may test unusualness rather than anxiety.
What did Pickel’s 1998 study suggest about weapon focus?
It may be due to unusualness rather than anxiety or threat.
Who found evidence supporting anxiety’s negative effect on recall?
Valentine and Mesout.
What was Valentine and Mesout’s procedure?
~ Divided participants into 2 groups based on high/low anxiety levels at the Horror Labyrinth in the London Dungeon.
~ Participants’ task was to describe a person encountered (actor) after leaving the labyrinth.
What did Valentine and Mesout find?
~ 17% of the high-anxiety group could correctly identify the actor from a line-up
~ 75% of the low-anxiety group could correctly identify the actor from a line-up
Who found evidence supporting anxiety’s positive effect on recall?
Christianson and Hubinette.
What did Christianson and Hubinette’s study involve?
Interviewed 58 witnesses to bank robberies; those most threatened were most accurate.
What is a counterpoint to Christianson and Hubinette’s findings?
Interviews were conducted long after the event, therefore researchers had no control over confounding variables during this time (e.g. post-event discussion).
What is a problem with the inverted-U theory?
It is too simplistic and does not account for all variables affecting recall.
