Anxiety

• Anxiety has a negative effect on recall (weapon focus) 1/3

  Anxiety creates a physical arousal in the body which prevents us from paying attention to important cues so recall is worse. Johnson and Scott made their participants believe they were taking part in a lab study.
• Anxiety has a negative effect on recall (weapon focus) 2/3

  While seated in the waiting room, participants in the low-anxiety condition heard a casual conversation in the next room and the man walk out carrying a pen and grease on his hand. In the high anxiety condition, participants heard a heated argument accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and saw the man who walked out was carrying a knife with blood on his hand.
• Anxiety has a negative effect on recall (weapon focus) 3/3

  The participants later picked out the man from 50 photos. 49% of those who saw the low anxiety condition got it correct and 33% of those who saw the high anxiety condition were able to correctly identify him. The tunnel theory of memory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events. Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect.
• Anxiety has a positive effect on recall 1/2

  Anxiety triggers the fight / flight response, increasing alertness . Yuille & Cutshall conducted a study of an actual shooting. The shop owner shot the thief dead. There were 21 witnesses and 15 took part in the study. They were interviewed 45 months after the event and they were compared to the original police interviews at the time of the crime. They were also asked to rate how stressful it was at the time on a scale to 7 and whether they had emotional problems since.
• Anxiety has a positive effect on recall 2/2

  The witnesses were very accurate and there was little change in the amount recalled after 5 month - some details age, height, weight and colours of stuff were less accurate. Those who reported the highest levels of stress were more accurate that those who reported lower levels of stress (88%: 75%). This suggests that anxiety doesn't have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of EWT/ memory in a real world context and may even enhance it.
• Explaining contradictory findings 1/2

  Yerkes and Dodson believe the relationship between emotional arousal and performance lookes like an inverted U. Deffenbacher reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings on the levels of anxiety. He used the Yerkes-Dodson Law to explain the findings.
• Explaining contradictory findings 2/2

  Lower levels of anxiety (arousal) produce lower levels of recall accuracy and then memory becomes more accurate as the levels of anxiety (arousal) increase. There is an optimal level of anxiety which is the point of maximum accuracy. If a person experiences anymore arousal, Their recall will decline again.