EWT anxiety

A study by Yullie and Cutshall 86 investigated the accuracy of testimony in relation to a real life event. They interviewed 13 witnesses to a real life shooting involving the store owner and an armed thief. The store owner was wounded but recovered, the thief was shot dead. They found that those who were most distressed at the time of the shooting appeared to have the most accurate recall 5 months later. It would appear that heightened arousal associated with anxiety enhanced the accuracy of witness’s recall.

Evaluation:  in this investigation the psychologists were able to record memories of a real traumatizing event which is something which would not be possible to do under laboratory conditions ( high in…