EWT- Anxiety

• What is Anxiety?

  Unpleasant state of emotional arousal

  Physical- increased heart rate & sweatiness

  Normal reaction to a stressful situation
• What is Weapon's Focus?

  Where the witness focuses more on the weapon than on the culprits face. This then negatively affects the ability to recall the event.
• What is the Yerk-Dodson Inverted-U Hypothesis?

  Explains how different levels of anxiety effect event recall.
• What does the Yerk-Dodson Inverted-U Hypothesis say about a moderate amount of Anxiety?

  It produces optimal performance. Best accuracy of rec
• What is Repression?

  Anxiety hinders others the recall of memory. Access of memories is barred, so to protect the individual from emotional distress.
• What is johnspon andc scott s et al's study on Anxiety?

  He found that if a person is carrying a weapon, then witnesses focus on the weapon rather than the persons face, negatively affecting their ability to recall facial details of the armed criminals. This supports the idea of Anxiety.
• What positive effects can Anxiety have on Recall?

  Fight or flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become aware of cues in the situation
• What Positive Evaluation points of Anxiety affecting EWT?

  Many research to support- Johnson and Scott, Loftus
• What Negative Evaluation points of Anxiety affecting EWT?

  Weapon Focus may not be relevant- May be due to surprise than just on focusField Studies can lack control- Possibly couldn't control post-event discussionEthical Issues- Psychological harmInverted-U Hypothsis could be too simplistic- difficult to define and measure accurately
• Weapon focus limitation (AO3)

  • AO3: Weapon focus may not be as relevant as suggested-> Johnson and Scott suggested the tunnel theory as an explanation for why anxiety has a negative effect on recall, as reflected in study-> However can be argued ppts may focus on the weapon out of surprise instead of fear/anxiety-> Idea supported by Pickel’s experiment, hairdressing video with different items, scissors, handgun, wallet, raw chicken-> FOUND EWT was poorer in the high unusualness conditions which therefore may suggest weapon focus is due to surprise/unsualness instead of anxiety, therefore limiting explanatory ability on how anxiety directly effects EWT
• Extraneous factors for YUILLE AND CUTSHALL (AO3)

  • Field study (Yuille and Cutshall)->  Within the 4/5 months between the scenario and the experiment it is likely other things have happened to the ppts which they have had no control over-> e.g. post event discussion, media coverage, talking in therapy-> Limitation as extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall and changed it drastically as a result-> Therefore effects of anxiety may be overwhelmed by these extraneous factors, repetitive conversation may have actually improved accuracy/recall and therefore cannot be directly assessed in the interview
• Strength of YUILLE AND CUTSHALL (AO3)

  • Ethical issues-> Johnson and Scott’s study may arise concerns due to causing/creating anxiety in a contrived situation, may have therefore caused psychological harm for the purpose of research which breaches the BPS guidelines-> Can be therefore argued that the field study is a more appropriate measure of anxiety as use of a field study means the scenario was real life and already had the existing variable of anxiety/EWT-> Additionally can be compared with original lab study to assess if findings are similar/different to therefore eliminate whether findings are a result of a highly controlled environment or are subject to real life situations
• Limitation of mundane realism (AO3)

  • Johnson and scott's study lacks mundane realism
  • Highly unconventional and fabricated situation
  • link to ecological validity etc.