Conclusion on Yuille and Cutshall's study? | People who experience higher anxiety in situations give a more accurate eyewitness testimony compared to people who experienced lower levels of anxiety. |
What is anxiety? | A state of emotional and physical arousal. Includies having worried thoughts and feeling of tension. Increased heart rate, sweating. It is normal reaction to stressful situations but can affect ewt |
What is the positive effects of EWT? | Due to flight or fight, we become physiologically aroused. This leads the person to being on high alert, paying close attention to what is happening to aid their survival. Strong recall and accurate EWT |
What is the negative effects of EWT? | Person might not be able to pay attention to detail because they are focused on the weapon. Tunnel theory (when they only focused on surviving), lead to poor recall and EWT |
What was the aim of Johnson and Scott's study? | To investiage the levels of anexity and its affect on the accuracy recall of EWT |
What was the procedure of Johnson and Scott's study? | Ppts put in a waiting room, told they will be in a lab experiment.
Condition 1: argument heard from room, guy comes out with a pen and grease on his hand
Condition 2: Hears smashed glass from the room, guy comes out with a knife and blood on it.
Identify the person out of 50 photos |
Findings of Johnson and Scott's study?? | Condition 1: 49% accurate recall
Condition 2: 33% accurate recall |
Conclusion of Johnson and Scott's study? | When there are low levels of anxiety, recall is more accurate compared to high levels of anxiety |
What was the aim of Yuille and Cutshall's study? | To see if anziety levels affect the accuracy of EWT |
Procedure of Yuille and Cutshall's study? | Real life shooting, shop keeper shot theif dead in gun shop.
13 out of 21 witnesses.
Interviewed 4-5 months after
Rated aniexty out of 7 and asked if they had emotional problems after. Then answer questions |
Findings of Yuille and Cutshall's study? | High anxiety: 88% accurate recall
Low anxiety: 75% accurate recall
But no specific recall on clothing, height and weight.
Accuracy determind by how many things were rememberd |
Conclusion on Yuille and Cutshall's study? | People who experience higher anxiety in situations give a more accurate eyewitness testimony compared to people who experienced lower levels of anxiety. |
A strength of anxiety on EWT? | Evidence about its positive effects.
Yullie and Cutshall's experiment. Found that high anxiety was 88% accurate recall and 75% accurate recall with low anxiety.
Same questions as police, high ecological validity
Shows that anxiety can possibly enhance EWT |
A weakness of anxietey on EWT? | Hard to use Yullie and Cutshall, the people were interviewed 4-5 months after the crime.
No control of what happened over the months, post-even discussion.
This means the effects of anxiety might have been overwhelmed by other facots, impossible to access by the time ppts were interviewed.
Lack of control, affect the accuracy of recall |
A weakeness of anxiety on EWT? | They weren't testing anxiety but testing unusualness
Pickel studied someone carrying scissors (high A and low U), a raw chicken (low A and high U), a handgun (high A and high U) and a waller (low A and low U). Recall was lower with the highly unsual verions
Not focused on the weapon bc scared but rather it was unusual to see in public
Johnson and Scotts study had low internal validity. |