anxiety

• what are the three characteristics of anxiety?

  cognitive, emotional, behavioral.
• Who studies the negative effects of anxiety on recall?

  Johnson and Scott (1976)
• what was the procedure of Johnson and Scotts study of anxiety?

  participants in the study were asked to wait outside a lab and 'overheard' what they thought was a genuine argument. They were either in a low anxiety condition where a man with greasy hands comes out holding a pen, or a high anxiety condition where a man holding a bloody paper knife comes out. The participants were shown 50 photos and had to identify the man.
• what were the findings and conclusions of Johnson and Scotts study of anxiety?

  in the low anxiety condition, there was 49% active recall and in the high anxiety condition, there was 33% active recall. Concluded that heightened arousal - weapon focused attention and so other aspects of the scene are ignored.
• what did Pickel test in 1998?

  if its was anxiety or just surprise that was being tested in weapon focus experiments.
• what was the procedure of Pickel's study in 1998?

  participants watched a video of a person entering a hairdressers carrying either a gun (high threat, high surprise), a wallet (low threat, low surprise), scissors (high threat, low surprise), raw chicken (low threat, high surprise.) They then took a recall test of who was holding it.
• what were the finding and conclusions of Pickel's study?

  The two conditions with high surprise (raw chicken and gun) led to a worse recall of who was holding it in the video. Therefore if it is not about threat, it is no about anxiety, so it is surprise that reduced EWT accuracy. This therefore disproves the study by Johnson and Scott.
• who studies the positive affect of anxiety on recall?


  Christianson and Hubinette (1993)
• what was the Christianson and Hubinette's procedure/what were the two conditions?

  they questioned 58 participants who had witnesses real life bank robberies. There were two conditions, people who were bystanders, this was the low anxiety condition, and people who were directly threatened by bank robbers, these were the high anxiety group.
• what type of experiment is Christianson and Hubinnete's

  natura experiment - the researchers took advantage of events that took place naturally, they did not manipulate the IV.
• what were the findings and conclusions of the research by Christianson and Hubinnete?

  Overall recall was good at 75% accuracy. Those in the high anxiety group however has a more detailed and accurate recall than the bystanders. They concluded that high anxiety leads to better recall.
• what are strengths of Christianson and Hubinnete's study?

  the study had high ecological validity as real life events were studied, so real behaviour was being studies. The study was also ethical as any stress from the original event was not the researchers responsibility.
• what are weaknesses of Christianson and Hubinnete's study?

  as it was a natural experiment, there was lack of control over extraneous variables such as type of weapon and number of assailants. Another weakness was proximity to the robber, as those directly threatened would have has a better visual look. Those directly threatened are also more likely to be employees who may feel responsible to identify the robber and may also be trained in how to respond in situations like this.
• what researcher showed high anxiety is associated with reduced accuracy?

  Deffenbacher (2004)
• how many real life studies did Deffenbacher review?

  34
• what law shows that medium anxiety is optimum for recall?

  Yerkes-Dodson Law
• what does the Yerkes-Dodson Law show?

  the inverted U theory states performance will increase with stress, but only to a certain point where it decreases drastically.
• What does the Yerkes-Dodson law suggest was wrong with research based on anxiety and recall?

  they were not accurate as most of the studies used very high anxiety situations.