Anxiety and EWT

• Anxiety- an emotion characterised by the feelings of tension, worried thoughts and an activation of the flight or fight response which causes physcial changes like increased heart rate,
• Research into the influence of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony has been inconsistent, some research has suggested that anxiety has a negative influence on the accuracy of recall
• Loftus et al- pps watched slides of an event in a restaurant, half saw a man hand a cheque to a cashier, half the pps saw a man point a gun at a cashier, those pps who saw a gun remembered less details about the event, Loftus used tunnel theory to explain these results arguing that when in an anxious situation your vision will tunnel and you will focus on the item that causes you anxiety. In this case, Loftus described the effect as 'weapon focus' and argued that this focus on a weapon means the reported details of the event are less accurate.
• Evaluation of Loftus et al's research on weapon focus and anxiety in relation to EWT- research was standardised, eg all details in the slides pps witnessed were the same order then the item the man was holding. This means researchers can etablish that the cause in the change in EWT accuracy was the gun and not anything else.
• However a negative of Loftus Et Al's research is that the task lacks mundane realism as it is unlikely any real anxiety was caused by watching a slideshow. Other research has suggested that the presence of a weapon in real crimes has zero influence on the accuracy of EWT,
• Real life research into EWT has suggested that anxiety has a positive influence on the accuracy of recall.
• Real life research- Yuille and Cutshall- pps were people who had witnessed a real armed robberry 5 months earlier, they were asked to rate the level of anxiety they felt at the time of the event and then were interviewed about the details of the crime which included some misleading info, those that reported the highest level of anxiety also remembered the most accurate details.
• High anxiety= high accuracy yuille and cutshall study


  • Research has high mundane realism as the participants experienced a real actual crime, experienced real anxiety and gave a real eyewitness testimony at the time of the crime, therefore results have high ecological validity
  • Participants have had many opportunities to discuss the event and read about it in the news, which means their recall of details may not be from their own memory but as a result of post event discussion, therefore the results lack ecological validity
  • Participants who had the highest levels of anxiety may have been closer to the event itself, therefore the reason for high recall of details could be because they saw the most, not anxiety, which is a confounding variable
• yuille and cutshall evaluation of research continued- inconsistent results relating to the influence of anxiety on EWT can be explained by the Yerkes Dodson Law. This law states that performance, such as recall, will increase with anxiety up until a point, but if anxiety becomes too high performance will decline,
• anxiety decreases recall- eg weapon focus- weapons are a cause of anxiety, witnesses are distracted, focusing attention on the weapon rather than the criminal.
• however some psychologists argue that anxiety increases recall, a state of arousal increases alertness, and awareness of the situation and surroundings, also the strong emotions felt could improve memory encoding
• yerks-dodson law of arousal- EWT accuracy increases as anxiety raises as the witness becomes more alert, however at a point anxiety becomes too high and more stress/distraction results in lower accuracy.
• Yuille and cutshall- interviewed 13 witnesses to a deadly real life shooting four months after the event, was found witnesses resisted misleading information and those with most stress (closest to shooter) produced the most accurate EWT. this suggests misleading information and anxiety may not be a significant problem for real world eyewitness testimony.
• Research on the limitations of EWT has led to real life applications, eg the development of the cognitive interview, this technique is designed to reduce the influence of schemas on the accuracy of recall.
• Experimental designed such as Loftus' using films of staged crashes and crimes are conducted in a lab setting rather than a courtroom, meaning that pps are aware that there is a lack of consequences for providing inaccurate EWT. It could be that in the real world under oath people provide more accurate EWT when what they say could lead to a real conviction
• Lab based studies can suffer from demand characteristics with participants often wanting to 'help' the researcher
• some psychologists argue high anxiety levels increase recall. a state of arousal and alertness of the situation as a result, also the strong emotions could result in memory encoding
• weapon focus is one explanation around anxiety and ewt where it argues the weapon in a violent crime causes a witness to overly fixate on it as a negative stimulus and then this decreases other recalling abilities of important information surrounding a crime
• Yerks-Dodson law of arousal- EWT anxiety increases as anxiety raises as the witness becomes alert. however at a certain point the anxiety can become too high and result in a decrease in accurate recall of events from overly stressful feelings/distractions
• anxiety and ewt- peters- (1988)- patients at a real healthcare centre were given an injection by a nurse, with a researcher also present in the room, was found that the patients were better able to recognise the researcher than the nurse, this suggests anxiety is caused by having the injection, and the weapon focus is on the syringe.
• Against point for anxiety and EWT- Yuille and Cutshall- (1986)- interivewed 13 witnesses to a deadly shooting four months post-event, was found witnesses resisted misleading information and those with the most stress (closest to the shooter) produced the most EWT, suggesting misleading information and anxiety may not be a significant problem to real life eyewitness testimony
• evaluations of factors effecting EWT- real world applications- development of cognitive interview- STAGES- reinstate contexts, report everything, change order of events, change perspective
• experimental designs such as loftus et al, using films of staged crimes and crashes conducted in a lab experiment setting than a courtroom. meaning that pps are aware that there is a lack of consequences for providing incorrect info in EWT. it could be that in the real world under oath people provide more accurate EWT when what they say can lead to a conviction