EWT - anxiety

EWT - anxiety

1. When we are in a state of anxiety, we tend to focus on whatever is making us feel anxious or fearful, and we exclude other information about the situation.

   • If a weapon is used to threaten a victim, their attention is likely to focus on it. Consequently, their recall of other information is likely to be poor.

2. Clifford and Scott (1978) found that people who saw a film of a violent attack remembered fewer of the 40 items of information about the event than a control group who saw a less stressful version. As witnessing a real crime is probably more stressful than taking part in an experiment, memory accuracy may well be even more affected in real life.

   • One strength of this study is that it had high ecological validity compared with lab studies which tend to control variables and use student populations as research participants. accuracy of their memory recall
   • One weakness of this study was that there was an extraneous variable. The witnesses who experienced the highest levels of stress where actually closer to the event (the shooting) and this may have helped with the accuracy of their memory recall.

3. Weapon focus

   • People in real life situations may focus on the weapon rather than the scenario and therefore lose sight of details in the crime.
   • Johnson and Scott – participants heard arguing and then saw a man carrying a knife covered in blood or a greasy pen . Participants then had to identify the man
     • Those who saw the knife had 33% overall accuracy

4. Yuille and Cutshall

   • contradicts the importance of stress in influencing eyewitness memory.
   • 21 witnesses observed a shooting incident in Canada outside a gun shop in which 1 person was killed and a 2nd seriously wounded.
   • The incident took place on a major thoroughfare in mid-afternoon. All of the witnesses were interviewed by the investigating police, and 13 witnesses (aged 15-32 yrs.) agreed to a research interview 4-5 months after the event
   • . The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident, using a 7 point scale.
   • The eyewitness accounts provided in both the police and research interviews were analysed and compared.
   • The results of the study showed the witnesses were highly accurate in their accounts, and there was little change in amount or accuracy of recall after 5 months.
   • The study also showed that stress levels did not have an effect on memory, contrary to lab findings.
   • All participants showed high levels of accuracy, indicating that stress had little effect on accuracy.
   • However, very high anxiety was linked to better accuracy. Participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (about 88% accurate compared to 75% for the less-stressed group).