Effects of Anxiety of EWT

Weapon Focus- Johnson and Scott 1976

Procedure

Participants sat in a waiting room where, from the adjoinign room, they could hear an argument. a man with either a pen covered in grease or a knife covered in blood ran out of the room.

Findings

Man w. a pen= 48% accurate 

Man w. a knife= 33% accurate 

suggest that ew attention is instictively drawn toward the weapon to asses the danger 

Anxiety has a positive effect- Christianson and Hubinette 

When interviewing real life witnesses of bank robberies from 4-15 months afterwards, with victims (those closely involved- high anxiety) and bystanders (those less involved- low anxiety) generally good recall was shown. Better than 71% accurate recall showing that anxiety has a positive effect on memory

Yerkes-Dodson effect

The observation that arousal has a negative effect when it is very low or very high, but at moderate levels can be beneficial.

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