factors affecting eyewitness testimony (anxiety)

Question 1

Outline Johnson and Scotts study

Answer 1

• led ppts to believe they were going to take part in a lab study
• seated in the waiting room they heard an argument next door
• in the ‘low anxiety’ condition a man walked out with a pen in hand and grease on his hands
• in the ‘high anxiety’ condition the arguing was accompanied by the sound of smashing glass
• a man walked out holding a paper knife that was covered in blood

Question 2

what were the findings of Johnson and Scotts research

Answer 2

• ppts were then asked to pick from 50 photos to identify the man
• 49% got it right from the ‘low-anxiety’ condition whilst 33% identified correctly from the ‘high-anxiety’ condition

Question 3

what does the tunnel theory argue

Answer 3

a witnesses attention narrows to focus on a weapon, since it is the source of anxiety

Question 4

outline Yuille and Cutshalls’ study

Answer 4

• real life study of a shooting in Vancouver, Canada; shop owner shot a thief dead
• 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to take part in the study
• interviews held 4-5 months after the incident, these were compared with police interviews made at the time
• witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident, using a 7-point scale and were asked if they had any emotional problems since the event

Question 5

recall the findings of Yuille and Cutshalls’ findings

Answer 5

• witnesses were very accurate on their accounts; little change in the amount or accuracy after 5 months; though some details were less accurate
• ppts who recorded most amount of stress were most accurate (88% compared to 75%)

Question 6

Define the Yerkes-Dodson law

Answer 6

• shows the relationship between emotional arousal and performance which is shown through an ‘inverted U’

Question 7

How did Deffenbacher apply the Yerkes-Dodson law to EWT

Answer 7

• lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of accuracy, opposite is true for the increase of anxiety
• however there comes a point where the optimal level of anxiety is reached, this is the point of maximum accuracy
• if an eyewitness experiences any more anxiety than this their recall of an event suffers drastic decline

Question 8

Give a limitation of Johnson & Scotts study

Answer 8

• may test surprise rather than anxiety
• Pickel; conducted an experiment using a handgun, scissors, a wallet or raw chicken as the handheld weapons in a hairdressing salon video
• eyewitness testimony was worse in the extremely unusual conditions
• this is bad as Johnson & Scotts study shows nothing about the effects of anxiety on EWT

Question 9

What is a limitation of field studies

Answer 9

• they sometimes lack control
• researchers usually interview real-life eyewitnesses after the event, in the period of time where they are not controlled by the researchers, post-event discussions etc would’ve influenced the witnesses recall
• it is possible that these extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall