EWT: anxiety

• anxiety:

  • state of emotional + physical arousal
  • emotional = worried thoughts
  • physical = increased heart rate
• negative effect of anxiety:

  • creates physiological arousal which prevents us from paying attention to important cues - worse recall
  • one approach to study = look at presence of weapon, weapon focus reduces recall of other details
• negative effect of anxiety procedure (johnson + scott):

  • believed they took part in lab study
  • low anxiety = overheard casual conversation, man walked out with pen + grease on hands
  • high anxiety = overheard heated argument, breaking glass + man holding blood covered knife
  • asked to pick out man from 50 pictures
• negative effects of anxiety findings:

  • low anxiety = 49% identified man
  • high anxiety = 33%
  • tunnel theory - enhanced memory for central events(weapon focus)
• positive effect of anxiety:

  • physiological arousal triggers flight or fight response, increasing alertness
  • may improve memory of event due to higher awareness of cues
• positive effects of anxiety procedure (yuille + cutshall):

  • study of real life shooting in vancouver - 21 witnesses, 13 took part
  • interviewed 4-5 months after, interviews compared to original interviews
  • accuracy determined by number of details reported
• positive effects of anxiety findings:

  • very accurate - little change in accuracy
  • some details e.g age, height, weight estimates were less accurate
  • high stress = more accurate (88% compared to 75%)
  • anxiety doesnt have detrimental effect on testimonies + may enhance it
• contradictory findings to positive effects of anxiety:

  • deffenbacher reviewed 21 studies of eye witness testimonies - used yerkes dodson law to explain
  • flight/fight - increased alertness + improved recall
  • optimal level of anxiety - beyond this recall suffers drastic decline
• EVALUATION: unusualness not anxiety

  • weapon focus effect may not test effects of anxiety
  • pickel = people focus on weapon to surprise not fear, used scissors, handgun, wallet + raw chicken in hairdressing salon - worse testimonies in high unusualness e.g chicken + handgun
  • weapon focus is due to unusualness not anxiety - tells us nothing about effects of anxiety
• EVALUATION: research support

  • christianson + hubinette - interviewed 58 witnesses about bank robberies in sweden - some directly, some indirectly involved
  • recall was >75% accurate across all witnesses, direct were even more accurate
  • findings confirm anxiety doesnt reduce recall - similar findings to yuille + cutshall's research, reliable explanation
• EVALUATION: methodological limitations

  • natural/field experiments e.g christianson + hubinette - limited control over interviewing time (post event discussions) - may be affected by CVs
  • lab= higher control of CVs, but anxiety is manipulated - results in artificial task where demand characteristics influence validity
  • much research has considerable methodological limitations, difficult to draw valid conclusions