ANXIETY ON EWT

ANXIETY ON EWT

1. AO1

2. : Deffenbacher did a meta-analysis study of 18 studies looking at the effect of heightened anxiety on accuracy of eyewitness recall. Deffenbacher concluded that high levels of stress negatively affect the accuracy of the eyewitness’s memory of the event.

3. : Loftus conducted a study into the effect the presence of a weapon can have in a situation. She found that weapons distract people’s attention from the situation as a whole and they focus on the weapon.

   • People from the first condition were 49% accurate in identifying the man and from the second condition, people were 33% accurate.
     • Because of the focus on the weapon the evidence supplied by the witnesses can be poor in terms of recall for certain details of crimes.

4. Yuille and Cutshall -despite the high levels of stress, the recall from the participants were very accurate.

   • They examined the recall of witnesses to a shooting in a town in Canada
     • witnesses were able to recall the event in great detail, the accounts given by the witnesses were accurate with each other and leading questions didn’t alter how the participants responded.

5. AO2

6. SUPPORT= Christianson and Hubinette (1993). This study found that emotional arousal may actually enhance the accuracy of memory.

   • The found that witnesses who had been threatened in some way were more accurate in recalling the event than those who had been onlookers and less emotionally aroused by the crime.

7. CRITICISM-ethical concern regarding participants.

   • led to believe the experiment was a real life situation, some may say they were deceived and that it may have caused psychological hard to the participants. They also did not provide fully informed consent and weren’t aware of their right to withdraw from the study.
     • However researchers did attempt to overcome the issue of the lack of consent and information by fully debriefing participants at the end of the study and allowing them the right to withdraw is they so choose.