factors affecting eyewitness testimony: anxiety

• anxiety has a negative effect on recall

  anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse
• anxiety has a negative effect on recall study procedure

  • Johnson and Scott
  • led pps to believe they were going to take part in a lab study
  • whilst waiting pps heard an argument in the next room
  • 'low anxiety' condition- man walked through holding a pen
  • other pps heard argument but also sounds of glass
  • 'high anxiety' condition- man walked through holding a knife
• anxiety has a negative effect on recall study findings

  • pps later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos
  • 49% could identify man with pen
  • 33% could identify man with knife
  • witnesses attention narrows to focus on the weapon
• anxiety has a positive effect of recall

  stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety

  flight-or-fight response is triggered which increases alertness and improves memory because we are more likely to see cues
• anxiety has a positive effect on recall study procedure

  • John Yuille and Judith Cutshall
  • study of a real-life shooting in a gun shop
  • shop owner shot a thief dead
  • 21 witnesses
  • 13 agreed to take part
  • interviews were 4-5 months after
  • accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account
  • witnesses were asked to rate how stressed they had felt
  • also asked if they had experienced any emotional problems since
• anxiety has a positive effect on recall study findings

  • witnesses were very accurate in their account
  • little change in the amount of accuracy after 5 months
  • those who reported most stressed were the ones who recalled most accurately
• explaining the contradictory findings

  • lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy
  • memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety experienced increases
• evaluation: limitation, weapon focus may not be relevant

  • Johnson and Scott study may test surprise rather than anxiety
  • may focus more on weapon because they are surprised, not scared
• evaluation: limitation, field studies sometimes lack control

  • researchers usually interview witnesses sometime after the event
  • things will happen to the pps in that time e.g. talk to other people about the event
• evaluation: limitation, there are ethical issues

  • creating anxiety in pps is very risky
  • why real-life studies are so beneficial