EWT:anxiety

• Anxiety- EWT-

  Anxiety prevents us from paying attention to the important cues, limiting the recollection of memories.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  Johnson and Scott (1967)-

  • Saw a man walk past with a pen in his hands covered in grease; low anxiety condition.
  • Saw a man walk past with a bloody knife after hearing an argument and glass smash; high anxiety condition.
  • Participants had to pick out the man out from 50 photos – 49% identified the pen man, 33% identified the knife man.
  • Tunnel theory of memory makes people have enhanced memory of central events; weapon focuses can have this effect due to the anxiety.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  Johnson and Scott (1967)-

  • Field experiment (in a natural environment).
  • Independent groups (exposed to different conditions).
  • Participants sat in a waiting room (low anxiety) and told they were taking part n a lab experiment.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  Positive effect on anxiety-

  • The interviews were compared to the original police interviews from the event, where accuracy was determined by the number of correct details they gave.
  • Asked how stressed they felt at the scene on an 8-point scale.
  • Reposted on any emotional/disturbance issues.
  • Found little changes in the interviews but some details were less accurate (colour/weight/height of items).
  • The highest stress gave the most accurate interview of 88%.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  Positive effect on anxiety-

  • Creates physiological arousal/fight or flight increasing alertness possibly increasing awareness.
  • Yuille and Cutshall (1986) did an experiment with an actual shooting in a gun shop in Vancouver Canada.
  • The shop owner shot and killed a thief.
  • 21 witnesses and 13 in the study where they were interviewed 4-5 months after the event.
• anxiety- EWT-

  • There is both positive and negative findings of the study on anxiety how by Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908)
  • weak performance with low arousal, results in fatigue
  • Strong performance with mid arousal, results in optimum arousal
  • weak performance with high arousal, results in stress and anxiety.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  • Deffenbacher (1983) reviewed 21 studies using their law.
  • When witnessing a crime people became emotionally and physiologically aroused (anxiety and fight or flight).
  • Lower arousals give lower anxiety and lower rates of recall accuracy, higher levels give higher recollection accuracy.
  • The optimum arousal gives the maximum recollection accuracy, but with more the recall declines a lot.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  CPS- Christianson and Hübinette (1993) had 58 witness bank robberies in Sweden (so were workers and some bystanders) – 75% accuracy, direct victims most accurate – anxiety doesn’t reduce accuracy.

  CPW- Interviewed 15 months after the robbery, having no control on discussion – no control over confounding variables.
• Anxiety- EWT-

  S- Valentine and Mesout (2009) measured heart rates while participants were in high or low anxiety conditions – anxiety disrupted the recall details.

  W- Pickle (1998) used scissors, handgun, wallet or raw chicken in a salon video (scissors high anxiety but usual) – high accuracy for the chicken and gun due to unusualness.