Flashcards
EWT: ANXIETY
Cards in this deck (7)
- 1Outline research by Johnson and Scott into the effect of anxiety on EWT (1976)Led PPTs to believe they were taking part in a lab study and made them wait in a fake waiting room.
1. 'low anxiety' - heated argument then man with pen and greasy hands
2. 'high anxiety' - heated argument, breaking glass then man with paper knife covered in blood.
50 photos: condition 1 49%, condition 2 33%
They proposed the tunnel theory which argues that witnesses' attention narrows to focus on a weapon because it is the source of the anxiety. - 2Outline 1 piece of research showing that anxiety doesn't always have to negatively affect EWTWhen in a stressful situation our flight-or-fight response kicks in making us more alert.
Yuille and Cutshall 1986
Vancouver, Canada - shop owner shoots thief and there are 21 witnesses of which 13 agreed to do the study.
Interviews were 4-5 months later and details were compared to their original statements along with a 7-point scale of anxiety.
Findings: Little change after 5 months - though some details were less accurate such as age/weight/height.
PPTs who reported the highest levels of stress were the most accurate (88% compared to 75%)
Shows that anxiety increases recall accuracy - 3There are time when anxiety has had a positive effect on EWT and other times when it has had a negative effect. How can this be explained?Yerkes-Dodson law: relationship between emotional arousal and performance is an inverted U.
Deffenbacher applied the law to memory and EWT - lower levels of anxiety produced lower levels of recall but as anxiety increases so does performance.
There comes a point of optimal anxiety, which is also the point of optimal recall, after which recall start to drastically decline. - 4Is the inverted U theory a good one or has it been criticised?Anxiety is very difficult to define and measure, with many different aspects - cognitive, behavioural, physical and emotional.
The Yerkes-Dodson law only focuses on one of these elements.
Other elements however are just as important - e.g. cognitive factors - the way we think about an event has also been shown to affect our recall of it.
It is an incomplete and reductionist explanation. - 5Critics have suggests that the weapon focus effect may in fact not be relevant, as it may not be testing anxiety. Explain thisCould be surprise rather than anxiety that draws the attention of witnesses thereby reducing recall.
Pickel et al 1998:
Used scissors, gun, wallet and raw chicken as the handheld items in a hair salon with the scissors being the low unusualness in the situation.
EW accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun).
This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT - 6Describe why demand characteristics are an issue in lab studies of anxietyMost studies show PPTs a film of a crime so PPTs are aware they are part of a study.
Most of them will be able to work out for themselves they are going to be asked questions about what they have seen.
This could make their responses more accurate because they want to be helpful or less accurate because they want to undermine the research. - 7Are there any ethical issues when studying the effect of anxiety on EWT?Creating anxiety is risky as it causes psychological harm.
Real life studies may be more beneficial as researchers interview people who have already witnessed a real event so there is no need to create anxiety.
This raises the question of whether or not we actually need lab studies.
However, they are a good comparison to the less controlled field studies so the benefits may outweigh the costs.
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- - Psychology (Memory) Flashcards on EWT: ANXIETY, created by Lianna Peryer on 25/05/2017.
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