anxiety

• yerkes-dodson effect - the idea that lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy however high levels of anxiety also produce low levels of recall accuracy
• anxiety is a normal reaction to a stressful situation
• a state of emotional and physical arousal
• the emotions include having worried thoughts or feelings
• physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness
• key study - weapon focus effect (johnson and scott 1967)

  procedure - ppts were placed in a waiting room (werent told this was the study) .

  heard an argument and in one condition a man ran out with a bloody knife (high anxiety)

  in condition 2 the man ran out with a pen (low anxiety)

  ppts were then asked to identify man
• johnson and scott study findings

  • anxiety has negative affect on recall accuracy
• key study - yuille and cutshall (1986)

  conducted study of real life shooting in gun shop, shop owner shot dead the thief.

  At the time witnesses were interviewed by police

  13 of those real life witnesses agreed to be reinterviewed 4-5 months later and had to rate on a 7-point scale how stressed they felt
• yuille and cutshall study findings-

  witnesses were accurate with their account and there was little change in the accuracy 5 months later.

  ppts who reported highest levels of stress were most accurate (88%) compared to low levels of stress (75%)
• weakness of anxiety

  weapon focus effect may not be caused by anxiety but by the element of surprise instead which reduces accuracy of EWT
• weakness of anxiety

  there are ethical issues with research that try to cause anxiety in people (like the johnson and scott study) such as

  • protection from abuse and harm
  • informed consent
• studies of real life crimes that are carried out in more natural settings (like the yuille and cutshall study) can often lack control a the ppts are usually interviewed a while after the event meaning lots of EV's are likely to occur such as post event discussion
• there are individual differences in how much anxiety affects recall eg- some people may naturally be more anxious may be less accurate when their anxiety increases to a moderate level rather than more accurate like yerkes-dodson effect suggests