EWT Anxiety

• EWT anxiety - high Levels of emotion linked to a weapon present may impede (distract and interfere) or improve memory (make a person focus more)

  anxiety > physiological arousal > fight or flight > memory improved

  anxiety > physiological arousal > no attention to important cues > memory impeded.
• EWT Anxiety. Johnson and Scott (1976) :

  ppts went to the lab for an experiment and were told to wait in reception. the receptionist left, ppt was alone. ppts were exposed to one of two conditions:

  • no weapon: ppt overhears a heated exchange about equipment failure. an individual walked out past the ppt, holding a pen, with grease covered hands.
  • weapon: ppt overheard the heated exchange, with sounds of breaking glass and crashing chairs. the individual walked out holding a bloody object resembling a knife.
• EWT anxiety. Johnson and Scott (1976) :

  after the ppt was faced by the individual, they were shown 50 photographs. They were told that the suspect may or may not be present In them.

  • no weapon: 50% identified
  • weapon: 33% identified

  tunnel theory developed
• Yuille and Cutshall (1986) :

  • Ppts from a real life shooting in a gun shop
  • shop owner shot the thief dead
  • 13 out of 21 witnesses took part in the study, 4-5 months after their original statements were given to the police.
  • They were asked questions about the event and their wellbeing after the event.

  Results: ppts that reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate in their recall.

  88% compared to 75% less stressed

  everyone had a high level of accuracy

  there was little change in accounts of information given both times.
• EWT anxiety. there are contradictory findings between the two studies.

  the Yerkes-Dodson curve shows the relationship between emotional arousal and performance based on the idea that performance increases with anxiety until an optimal point where it starts to decline.

  there is a maximum accuracy in EWT when an optimal level of anxiety is reached.

  
• EWT anxiety AO3 - Johnson and Scott - ppts may focus on a weapon because they are surprised, not because they are scared or anxious. Pickel (1998) used items like guns, wallets, scissors and raw chicken in a hair dressing salon. EWT accuracy was poor for highly unusual items such as the chicken and the gun. This is due to unusualness, not anxiety.
• EWT anxiety AO3 - Yuille and Cutshall - the study has high validity as it is a field study, making it true to life. However the scoring turned qualitative data into quantitative data. This incurs a chance of bias with subjective interpretation, decreasing the validity of the results.
• EWT anxiety AO3. The studies show ethical issues, creating anxiety in ppts goes against BPS guidelines, there is no protection from harm. It is unethical to subject ppts to psychological harm. Real life studies may be more useful than Johnson and Scott.
• EWT anxiety AO3. Field studies lack control. Interviews usually take place some time after the event and we cannot control what happens between that time. There may be distorted memory or extraneous variables may be responsible for accuracy recall instead of anxiety.