Effects of Anxiety on EWT
- Created by: ImyWatkins
- Created on: 26-03-17 17:48
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- Effects of Anxiety
- Explaining the contradictory findings.
- Yerkes and Dodson
- Relation between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted 'U'.
- Deffenbacher (1983) applied the Yerkes-Dodson Law to EWT.
- Lower levels of anxeity produce lower levels of recall accuracy.
- High levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy.
- Necessary to find the optimal level of anxiety for accurate recall.
- Yerkes and Dodson
- Anxiety has a negative effect on recall
- Johnson and Scott (1976)
- Findings of participants being asked to identify the man from 50 photos.
- Group 1- 49% accurate recognition
- Group 2- 33% accurate recognition
- Tunnel Theory argues that EWT is negatively affected in the presence of a weapon because it is a source of anxiety that holds the witness' attention.
- Procedure
- Group Two heard the same argument, but they also heard glass breaking. This time, a man walked out with a paper knife that was covered in blood. (High-anxiety condition)
- Group One believed they were about to take part in a lab study. They heard an argument in the adjacent room and a man walked out covered in grease and with a pen. (Low-anxiety condition)
- Anxiety has a positive effect on recall.
- Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
- Procedure
- Study of a real-life shooting in Canada, where a shop owner shot a thief dead.
- 13 out of 21 witnesses agreed to take part.
- Witnesses interviewed 4-5 months after the event and these were compared with the police interviews made at the time.
- Accuracy was determined by the number of details recalled in each account.
- Witnesses were asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident, using a 7-point scale.
- FINDINGS- witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change after 5 months, but some details like age, weight and height were less accurate.
- Less stressed participants- 75% accurate
- Most stressed participants- 88% accurate
- Explaining the contradictory findings.
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