8. Accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Anxiety

• Anxiety - AO1


  - A state of physical and emotional arousal. -Symptoms include

  - Increased heart rate

  - Sweatiness

  - Worried thoughts

  - Tensions
• Anxiety has a negative effect on recall - weapon focus - AO1


  - Anxiety creates psychological arousal which prevents us from paying attention to important cues
• Weapon focus - AO1

  - When a weapon is present it can lead an EW to focus on the weapon rather than other details in the crime
• Johnson and Scott (1976) - procedure - AO1


  - Participants believed they were taking part in a lab study

  Two conditions -

  - Low-anxiety condition -

  Heard a causal conversation in the next room and a man walked out with a pen in his hand and grease

  - High-anxiety situation -

  Heard a heated conversation with the sound of broken glass. Man walked out holding a knife covered in blood

  Findings and conclusions -

  - Participants later asked to pick a man out from a set of 50 photos
• Anxiety has a positive effect on recall - AO1


  - The fight or flight response - increases alertness which may improve memory as we became more aware of cues in the situation.
• Johnson and Scott (1978) - Findings - AO1

  - 49% who were in the low-anxiety condition were able to identify the man correctly

  - 33% who were in the high anxiety condition were able to identify the man correctly

  - The tunnel theory - argues that individuals have enhanced a memory for central events.
• Yulie and Cutshall (1986) procedure - AO1


  - Research into the positive effects of anxiety

  - Conducted study of an actual shooting in a gun shop - Vancouver, Cananda.

  - Shop owner shot a thief dead

  21 witnesses and 13 took part in the study

  - Interviewed 4-5 months after the crime and they were compared to their original police interviews at the time of the shooting.

  - Accuracy was determined by number of details reported correctly

  - Asked how stressed they felt on a 7-point scale and weather they had any emotional problems after
• Yulie and Cutshall (1986) findings and conclusions - AO1

  - Witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in I the amount and accuracy of recall after 5 months

  - Some details were less accurate - weight, age, and height estimates

  - Participants who reported the most stressed were more accurate - 88% more accurate compared to 75%

  - Anxiety does have a detrital effect on EWT
• Explaining the contradictory evidence - AO1

  - Yerks and Dodson (1908) - explained that the relationship between -emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U

  - Yerkes-Dodson law - Performance will increase with stress but only up to a certain point where is drastically decreases.

  
• Unusualness not anxiety 🙁 - AO3

  - Johnson and Scott may not have tested anxiety

  The reason participants focused on weapon may have been because they were shocked to see it

  - Pickle (1998) - conducted a study using scissor, a handgun and raw chicken or wallet in a hairdressing salon video

  - Scissors - low unusualness

  - Raw chicken and hand held gun - high unusualness

  - EW accuracy was poorer in high unusualness conditions

  - Weapon focus is due to unusualness rather than anxiety of threat
• Support for negative effects 😊 - AO3

  - Valintine and Mesount (2009) - conducted a study in the horror labyrinth at the London dudgeon

  - Researchers used objective measure - heart rate - to determine if participants had high or low anxiety

  - Those in that were high anxiety recalled fewer correct details

  Supports the facT that anxiety has a negative effect on recall
• Support for negative effects 😊 - AO1


  - Christian and Hubinnete (1993) - interviews 58 witnesses to an actual bank robbery in Sweden

  - Some were bank workers (directly involved) and others were bystanders (indirectly involved)

  - Recall more than 75% accurate across all witnesses

  - Direct victims had even more accurate recall - most anxious
• CP to support for positive effects 😊 - AO3


  - Christian and Hubinnete (1993) - Interviewed participants several months after the event occurs - 4-15 months.

  - Had no control of what took place in between - post even discussion

  - Effects of anxiety may be overwhelmed by other factors

  - Lack of control over confounding variables