Factors affecting EWT: Anxiety

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  • Created by: Gottowork
  • Created on: 11-05-16 15:02
What is anxiety?
A state of emotional and physical arousal, e.g. worried thoughts and increased heart rate. Can affect accuracy of EWT
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How could anxiety have a negative effect on recall?
The physiological arousal in the body could prevent us paying attention to important cues, making recall worse
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Who investigated the weapon focus effect?
Johnson and Scott
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Detail the procedure of Johnson and Scott's study
Participants heard heated argument, 'low anxiety' condition = pen and grease on hands, 'high anxiety' condition = sound of breaking glass + paper knife covered in blood
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What did Johnson and Scott find?
After picking out man from set of 50 photos, 49% participants for pen, 33% for knife
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What is the tunnel theory of memory?
A witness' attention narrows to focus on a weapon - it's a source of anxiety
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How could anxiety have a positive effect on recall?
The fight-or-flight response is triggered which increases our alertness + improves our memory of an event - more aware of cues in a situation
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Who did a study into the positive effect on recall?
Yuille and Cutshall
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What did Yuille and Cutshall do in their study?
Interviewed 13 people who witness real-life shooting 4-5 months after the incident, compared with original police interviews. Also asked them how stressed they had felt using 7-point scale
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What did Yuille and Cutshall find out?
Witnesses were very accurate, very little change in accuracy. Participants with highest levels of stress = 88%, less-stressed = 75%
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What do Yerkes and Dodson mean by their 'inverted U' theory?
Memory becomes more accurate as level of anxiety increases, but after optimal level reached, any more stress then their recall will decrease drastically
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What might the weapon focus effect test rather than anxiety, and why?
Surprise. Pickel - scissors, handgun, wallet, raw chicken hand-held items in hairdressing salon. EWT poorer with chicken and handgun, so WFE might not tell us about effects of anxiety on EWT
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Why can field studies like Yuille and Cutshall's sometimes lack control?
Things could have happened that couldn't have been controlled, e.g. discussion, media etc. So these extraneous variables may be responsible for accuracy of recall
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Why are there ethical issues to studying anxiety in participants?
Subjecting people to psychological harm for research purposes is unethical, so real-life studies are beneficial. Benefits may outweigh issues
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

How could anxiety have a negative effect on recall?

Back

The physiological arousal in the body could prevent us paying attention to important cues, making recall worse

Card 3

Front

Who investigated the weapon focus effect?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

Detail the procedure of Johnson and Scott's study

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What did Johnson and Scott find?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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