Factors Affecting Leading Questions- Anxiety

Question 1

Weapon focus study

Answer 1

• Participants sat outside lab and thought they were hearing genuine conversation with people inside.
• Condition 1- Amicable discussion about equipment failure, man came out with greasy hands holding a pen.
• Condition 2- Hostile discussion, sound of breaking glass and overturned furniture; man emerged covered in blood, holding a knife.
• Participants given 50 photos and asked to id the man.
  Results
• Condition 1- 49% accuracy id the man.
• Condition 2- 33% accuracy id the man.

Question 2

Possible explanations for weapon focus study

Answer 2

• Positive effect- Triggers fight or flight- Enhances alertness and memory.
• Negative effect- Weapon focus effect, attention on the weapon rather than the face due to anxiety.
• Yorkers-Dodson Law- There is an optimal level of arousal which enhances memory. Underarousal or overarousal leads to poor memory performance.

Question 3

Evaluation criticism- Low ecological validity

Answer 3

• One criticism of weapon focus study is low ecological validity.
• Ev- Staged hostile and amicable discussions. This was acted and the participants may have realised.
• Ex- Possibly more under-arousal, lack of anxiety as not a real life event. Hence poor memory performance, or demand characteristics.
• However, it could be argued that the reason for the low accuracy in the hostile condition is that the participants were surprised by the argument, rather than the anxiety of the weapon and threat it poses.

Question 4

Evaluation support- Some studies have higher ecological validity

Answer 4

• However, there are studies that have higher ecological validity that do in fact support the weapon focus theory.
• Ev- London dungeons (heart monitor to measure anxiety when scared). Results: high state of anxiety= fewer correct descriptors of person and inaccurate line up id.
• Ex- This proves that the more anxiety the worse the accuracy of EWT, as the more physically anxious less recall.
• However, this could be more due to surprise than weapon focused anxiety due to threat posed. This is backed up by a study looking at surprise vs perceived threat of a weapon. The participants accuracy decreased to high surprise than the high threat. Therefore, this criticises the weapon focus theory and supports the theory and supports the theory that EWT is affected by surprise rather than weapon focus anxiety.

Question 5

Evaluation criticism- Results of poor EWT recall may be overarousal

Answer 5

• However, both the London dungeon and the surprise studies results of poor EWT recall may be overarousal, hence poor performance and not optimal.
• Ev - Yuille and Cutshall; Canada armed robbery. Police interviewed EW’s and 13 were reinterviewed 4-5 months later. Accurate recall, even with 2 leading questions. Highest levels of stress reported were the most accurate (88%-75%).
• Ex- Proves that in a real life crime, EWT is accurate. Therefore, the weapon focus study was too underaroused and the London Dungeons over aroused (both not real crime situations).
• This fits with the Yerkes-Dodson Law: optimal anxiety which increases accuracy; too low (weapon focus) or too high and less accuracy.