Evaluation: Anxiety and Recall

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  • Evaluation: Anxiety and Recall
    • Weapon focus and relevance
      • Weapon focus effect may not be relevant
      • Johnson and Scott may test surprise rather than anxiety
      • Pickel (1998): took objects into a hairdressing salon
        • Scissors
        • Handgun
        • Wallet
        • Raw chicken
      • Eyewitness accuracy was poorer in the high unusualness conditions
        • Handgun
        • Raw chicken
      • Suggests weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety
      • Tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT
    • Lack of control
      • Researchers usually interview real-life witnesses after an event
      • Things will have changed in the time frame between the incident and interview
        • Discussions with others about the event
        • Accounts they read or saw in the media
        • Effects of being interviewed by police
      • These extraneous variables may be responsible for recall accuracy
      • Effects of anxiety may be overwhelmed by these factors
      • Impossible to asses by the time ppts are interviewed
    • Ethical issues
      • Creating anxiety in participants is risky
      • May subject ppts to psychological harm
      • Doesn't challenge findings from Johnson and Scott, but questions need for research
      • A possible reason
        • Compare findings with less controlled field studies
        • See if the benefits outweigh the issues
    • Yerkes-Dodson law too simplistic
      • Anxiety is difficult to define and measure
      • Has many parts
        • Cognitive
        • Behavioural
        • Emotional
        • Physical
      • Law assumes only one of these is linked to poor performance (physical)
      • Incomplete explanation
        • More to the relationship between anxiety and EWT
        • Doesn't fully explain how anxiety affects EWT
    • Demand characteristics
      • Most lab studies show ppts a filmed and/or staged crime
      • Awareness of the situation
        • Realising they are watching it for a reason
        • Figuring out they will be asked questions on what happened
      • May act differently
        • Perform in a way to please the experementer
        • May act to deliberately sabotage results
      • Participant behaviour is no longer natural
        • Extraneous variable
        • The DV will be affected

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roganx87

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Awesome mindmap for anxiety. Love it

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