factors affecting eyewitness testimony - anxiety

• Anxiety


  An unpleasant emotional state that is often accompanied by increased heart rate and rapid breathing
• Deffenbacher (1983) study


  • Investigated whether anxiety affects recall
  • Carried out a meta-analysis and reviewed 21 studies based on anxiety and accuracy of recall
  • Found that stress-performance relationship followed an inverted U function
• Inverted U function


  • Explains how anxiety affects the accuracy of recall of experienced events
  • Moderate amounts of anxiety improve the detail and accuracy of memory recall up to an optimal point
  • Further increases of anxiety lead to a decline in details and accuracy of recall
• Heightened anxiety


  Can divert the attention away from important features of a situation and therefore have a negative effect on the memory of the eyewitness
• The research on the inverted U function is too simplistic and subjective. What exactly is classed as high or low anxiety? This will be different amongst individuals as they will interpret anxiety levels differently and research isn't reliable
• Weapon focus effect


  The view a weapon in a criminals hands distracts attention from other features and therefore reduces the accuracy of identification due to anxiety
• Loftus (1987) study


  • Showed participants a series of slides of a customer in a restaurant
  • In one version, the customer pulled out a gun, in the other, the same customer pulled out a cheque
  • Participants were then given a line up of photos to identify the person and a questionnaire
  • Researchers used technology to measure eye fixation on the gun or cheque
• Johnson & Scott (1976) study

  • Asked participants to sit in a waiting room in either a high or low anxiety condition
  • The participants in the low anxiety condition heard a conversation and then saw a man walk past with a pen covered in grease
  • In the high anxiety condition participants heard a heated argument followed by the smashing of glass and saw a man leave with a knife covered in blood
  • Participants were later asked to identify the man they saw leave from a set of photographs to test weapon focus effect
• Christiansen & Hubinette (1993) study

  • Questioned 58 real witnesses to bank robberies in Sweden. Witnesses were either victims that worked at the bank or bystanders/members of the public. The interviews were conducted 4-15 months after the incident