factors-anxiety

    Cards (6)

    • what effect does anxiety have on eyewitness recall
      both better and worse, research supports both
    • explain anxiety has negative effect on recall and procedure
      -anxiety creates physiological arousal in body which prevents paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse
      -craig johnson and william scott's participants were seated in waiting room, in low-anxiety condition they heard a casual convo in next room then saw a man walk past carrying pen and grease on hands.
      -other participants in high anxiety heard a heated argument and sound of breaking glass, a man walked out of room holding knife covered in blood
    • explain findings of anxiety has negative effect on recall

      -participants later picked out man from 50 photos, 49% who had seen man carrying pen identified him
      -participants who saw blood-covered knife, only had 33%
    • explain anxiety has a positive effect on recall and procedure
      -witnessing stressful event creates anxiety thru physiological arousal. the fight or flight response is triggered increasing alertness.
      -john yuille and judith cutshall conducted study of actual shooting in gun shop in vancouver. shop owner shot thief dead, 21 witnesses, 13 took part in study
      -they were interviewed 5 months after incident and these interviews were compared with original police interviews at time of shooting
      -accuracy determined by number of details reported in each account, stress levels were also asked abt
    • explain findings for anxiety has positive effect on recall
      -witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in amount recalled or accuracy after 5 months
      -participants who reported highest stress levels were most accurate
      -this suggests anxiety does not have detrimental effect on accuracy of ewt and may even enhance it
    • explain the contradictory findings
      -according to yerkes and dodson, relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted u
      -contradictory findings explained using yerkes-dodson law, when we witness crime we become pysiologically aroused
      -lower levels of arousal produce lower levels of recall accuracy
      -performance increases with arousal until optimal level of anxiety