Anxiety

• Deffenbacher (1983) found the stress-performance relationship follows an inverted-U function (Yerkes Dodson Curve), where performance increases with stress up to an optimal point and then declines.
• Clifford and Scott (1978) found individuals who witnessed a violent attack remembered fewer details about the event compared to a control group who saw a less stressful version.
• Yuille and Cutshall (1986) conducted a study on witnesses of a real-life incident and found that recall accuracy of a stressful event involving weapons was remarkably accurate, even after a long time.
• The study by Yuille and Cutshall suggests that there are cases where memory for an anxious/stressful event can be accurate, even months later.
• According to the Yerkes-Dodson Law, an increase in arousal improves performance but only up to a point. Once arousal has passed a critical point called the optimum, performance tends to decline.
• Clifford and Scott (1978) found that witnesses to violent incidents generally recall less than witnesses to non-violent incidents, regardless of whether a weapon was used or not.
• Clifford & Hollin (1981) examined the relationship between the level of violence and recall. They found that the higher the level of violence depicted, the poorer participants' recall of an assault.
• Loftus (1975) suggested when a person witnesses a crime in which a weapon was used, their attention tends to focus on the weapon.
• Loftus (1975) coined the term weapon focus.
• When anxiety/ arousal is too extreme or too little, memory accuracy will be reduced.
• Anxiety can have a positive effect on accuracy of memory.
• Christianson & Hubinette (1993) questioned 58 witnesses of real-life bank robberies in Sweden 4-15 months after the event and found that those threatened in some way (high anxiety) had improved recall and remembered more details.
• Yuille & Cutshall (1986) reported that witnesses were accurate even 4-5 months after an event.