Anxiety

• describe the study by Johnson and Scott of anxiety on the effect of eyewitness testimony

  • asked pps to sit in a waiting room where they heard a heated argument in an adjoining room
  • saw a man run out with either a pen covered in grease or a bloody knife (low vs high anxiety inducing)
  • pps asked to identify the man using photos
  • FINDINGS- accuracy of identification was 49% with the greasy pen, 33% with the bloody knife
  • monitored eye movements and found that eyes were focused on the knife and not the face
• what is the weapon's focus effect?

  when a weapon is present during a crime, people will focus attention onto it rather than other important details of a crime such as a criminal's face
• what study is there to show that anxiety has a positive effect on EWT?

  • Christianson and Hubinette interviewed 58 witnesses to a real life bank robbery, 4-15 mths after robberies
  • all witnesses showed good memory for the events of the robbery (over 75% accurate recall) showing that anxiety doesn't reduce the accuracy of recall
  • concluded memories for negative events is better than for neutral events
• what is the Yerkes-Dodson effect?

  • moderate levels of anxiety lead to the best recall
  • if anxiety is too high or low, accurate memories for events are limited
• evaluation of anxiety in affecting the accuracy of EWT?

  • ☹️other explanations- misleading info
  • ☹️WFE may not be caused by anxiety but surprise- Pickel- someone running through hairdresser with wallet, handgun, scissors or raw chicken. Identification of the person was least accurate in the high surprise rather than high threat conditions
  • ☹️lab studies- may not generate accurate inductions of anxiety as real life situations might- may be why Christianson and Hubinette's findings are at odds with Johnson and Scott
  • ☹️no simple conclusion- depends on the type of crime -accuracy for recall of violent crimes is more accurate than for non-violent crimes it was found- so WFE may not be generalised to all crimes