Factors Affecting The Accuracy Of Eye Witness Testimony: Anxiety Flashcards
(8 cards)
What is anxiety?
States of emotional and physical arousal include having worried thoughts and feelings of tension. physical changes include increased heart rate and sweatiness anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations and can affect eyewitness testimony
Explain anxiety has a negative effect on recall?
anxiety creates arousal in the body which prevents us from paying attention to important cues. Johnson and Scott did a research on this. participants believe they were in a lab study waiting in a waiting room. Participants in the lower anxiety condition heard casual conversation in the next room the man walked past carrying a pen with grease on his hands. Other participants heard the heated argument acccomponied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked out the room holding a knife covered in blood. This was high anxiety condition.
What were the findings of the experiment Anxiety?
Participants later picked a man from a set of 50 photos 49% saw the man carrying a pen and were able to identify him 33% of people saw him hold the blood covered knife. tunnel theory of memory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events
Explain anxiety as a positive effect on recall?
Stressful events create anxiety through psychological arousal within the body. The flight of fight response is triggered Yuville and Cutshall conducted a study of an actual shooting in a shop Canada the shop owner shot a thief dead there was 21 witnesses 13 took part in the study, they were interviewed 4 to 5 months after the incident and the interviews were compared to the original police interview at the time of the shooting. They were then asked to see how scared they were on a seven point scale.
Findings on the anxiety experiment?
Witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and little change in the amount record. Some details were also less accurate for example for the colour of items and height/weight but those in the highest levels of stress were the most accurate. This suggests anxiety does not have detrimental effect on accuracy of eyewitness memory
explain explaining contradictory findings?
Yerkes and Dodson found a relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U. they studied 21 studies or EWT and noted contradictory findings on the effects of anxiety used Yerkes-Dodson law to explain findings we experience anxiety as well as psychological changes in our body lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy and a memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety increases however there is an optimal level of anxiety
One limitation of the anxiety experiment?
studied by Johnson and Scott reason participants focus on the weapon is because they were surprised at what they saw rather than scared pickle conduct an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet and raw chicken eye witnesses Accuracy was significantly poorer and the high unusualness conditions. this suggest weapon focus effect is due to unusualness than anxiety/threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically by the effects of anxiety
Evaluate one strength in anxiety?
Is it supporting evidence that anxiety has negative effect on accuracy Recall. Valentina and Mesout done research on weapon focus finding negative effects on recall. They use a heart rate monitor to divide participants into a high and low anxiety groups anxiety clearly disrupted the participants abilities a recall details about the actor in the London dungeon. this suggest as a high level of anxiety does have a negative effect.
