Accuracy of eyewitness testimonies

anxiety

= an unpleasant emotional state that is often accompanied by increased heart rate and rapid breathing

-- also known as physiological arousal

o Physical effects (heart rate, breathing rate) can be measured therefore objective research

A01 anxiety

- high anxiety

- low anxiety

- weapon focus effect

- robbery meta analysis

High anxiety - good eyewitness testimony

· Higher levels of arousal

· Fight or flight response is triggered

· Hyper aware/hyper vigilant

· Pay more attention to details around you

· Look for safety/escape

· Emotionally attached to the situation= remember more

· Very traumatic, highly emotional = long term memory = flashbulb memories

High anxiety - poor eyewitness testimony

· Shaken, upset, fearful, crying = anxious

· Emotions could act as a distraction

· Focusing on safety rather than details of the scene

· Not paying full attention to the event

· Overwhelmed by the emotion and situation - difficulty in explaining verbally/writing your accounts

· Shock - brain pause, forget

· High trauma = exaggeration to justify the anxiety levels

· Focused on survival rather that the details - minor details e.g., clothing, tattoo, etc.

· High adrenaline = negatively affect your memory, pupils dilate, more oxygenated blood

· Highly emotional/distressing, may cause you to repress memories/information

Low anxiety - good eyewitness testimony

· Emotionally detached - fixated on details e.g., weapon/clothing/people

· Take in whole event effectively

· More objective account due to lack of significance (emotionally/financially)

· Less likely to be overwhelmed = less likely to repress = more likely to remember

· More focused on details as potentially not fully involved/distracted

· Actively try and remember - time to do this

· Less emotional, shock is less likely, calmer, better position to take notice

· Enhanced memories - clearer picture

Low anxiety - poor eyewitness testimony

· Low anxiety = low arousal = less alert

· Potentially not concentrating

· Potentially won't care about small details

· Not fully involved, not personal to them, not affected individually so memory doesn't matter too much

· Little emotional effect = lack of focus

· Not focusing on key details e.g., height

· May be calm/relaxed = less hyper-vigilant and therefore, less information to take in

the weapon focus effect

= this refers to an eyewitness's concentration on a weapon to the exclusion of other details of a crime

o In a crime where a weapon is involved, it is not unusual for a witness to be able to describe the weapon in much more detail than the person holding it

high anxiety, poor eyewitness testimony

Johnson and Scott, 1976

Johnson and Scott (1976), Knife/pen study

- Participants were asked to sit in a waiting room, heard an argument in an adjoining room

- Then saw a man run through the room, 2 different conditions

1. Pen condition = man ran through with a pen & greasy hands (low anxiety)

2. Knife condition = man ran through with a knife covered in blood (high anxiety)

-- participants were then asked to identify the man from a set of photographs

- Johnson and Scott found that participants demonstrated a 49% accuracy in identifying the man with the pen and 33% accuracy in identifying the man with the knife

= supports the weapon focus effect as participants focused on the knife, not the man

A03 WEAKNESS - knife/pen study (not real)

P

= Johnson and Scott's research can be criticised as lacking ecological validity.

EV

= This is because, despite the participants being told they were taking part in a different study and being kept in the reception area, waiting to be led into the lab, there is a possibility that they could've anticipated that something was going to happen which would've affected the accuracy of their judgments.

EX

Therefore, these studies do not reflect real life cases and it can be argued that realistic arousal levels were not created, and do not replicate the anxiety levels that would be present at a true crime scene. As well as this, the individual differences of the participants could've played a role in determining their anxiety as they could have naturally been a more anxious person.

EXT

Furthermore, the results from Yuille and Cutshall's study (1986) contradict the results of the Johnson and Scott's weapon focus effect. The researchers interviewed 13 witnesses to a real-life shooting, in which one person was killed and another seriously injured. Yuille and Cutshall found that the witnesses all had very accurate recalls of the event, with central witness' having an accuracy of 84.56% and peripheral witnesses had an accuracy of 79.31%, despite the fact that the weapon of a gun was used in the crime.

LB

Consequently, Johnson and Scott's findings are not credible explanations of how the weapon focus effect can cause poor eyewitness testimonies as the study was artificial and results from real life situations contradict their study.

A03 WEAKNESS - knife/pen study (unethical)

P

= As well as this, Johnson and Scott's study can be criticised as being unethical.

EV

= Johnson and Scott exposed some of the participants to a man holding a bloodied knife, which could have induced extreme emotions of anxiety.

EX

= This is an issue because these participants may have left the study feeling stresses and anxious, especially if they knew other people who had been involved in a knife crime or had experienced something similar themselves.

EXT

= To ensure these effects aren't long-lasting, the researchers should offer the participants a debrief, where the research aims are outlined as this allows the participants to understand the true nature of the study. Counselling should also be offered to patients when necessary to alleviate any anxiety caused.

LB

= As a result of this, the study breached many ethical guidelines as the participants were deceived about the nature of the experiment and were not protected from harm.

Christianson and Hubinettes robbery metal analysis

Robbery Meta Analysis Research

· Questioned 58 real witnesses to Bank Robberies in Sweden

· Witnesses were either victims (bank owners) or bystanders (customers or employees)

· Bank owners suffered high anxiety - were close in proximity to the robber

· The bystanders had low anxiety - they weren't being robbed and were further away in proximity

Interviews were carried out 4-15 months after the robberies

· Researchers found that all witnesses showed good memories of the robberies itself

· Over 75% accurate recall

· The most anxious witnesses (the victims) had the best recall of all (enhanced recall)

= study shows that anxiety does not reduce accuracy of recall, but rather it has a positive effect

Christianson and Hubinette suggest that high anxiety/arousal create more enduring and accurate memories

= they believe there is an adaptive evolutionary advantage to remembering highly emotional events

Arguably adaptive to remember emotionally important events in order to remember similar events in the future and recall how to respond

A03 STRENGTH - robbery meta analysis

P

= A strength of Christianson and Hubinette's study was that it was carried out using real-life witnesses of a real-life robbery.

EV

= Therefore, the participants anxiety levels were not falsely created as they occurred under natural circumstances and as a result of this, arousal levels reflected real life situations.

EX

= Consequently, the witnesses' memories should be true and reflective of how much witnesses actually remembered after a real-life robbery.

C

= However, the research used bank robberies that took place in Sweden, and therefore the findings are arguably culture bound to this group of people as witnesses from other countries have the potential to respond differently, so the findings cannot be generalised.

LB

= Although this is true, the study can be credited as having ecological validity and therefore produces a more reliable recall, unlike Johnson and Scott's study, as this study was not artificial.

A03 WEAKNESS - robbery meta analysis

P

= Despite this, a limitation of this study is that, because it was naturalistic, the researchers could not control the extraneous variables of the study.

EX

= The participants had individual differences which may have caused them to respond in different ways to the anxious stimuli.

EV

= For example, the proximity of the robbers, whether or not they've experienced a similar situation before or been trained to deal with the situation, and the individual's natural response could all trigger either higher or lower arousal levels by triggering extreme levels of anxiety of triggering coping strategies to reduce anxiety.

EXT

= As well as this, the research only looks at witnesses of a bank robbery, therefore it can be argued that this one study does not reflect the eyewitness testimonies of all crime scenes and because of this the results of the study cannot be generalised outside of the crime scenes of a bank robbery.

LB

= Consequently, the anxiety conditions of the study cannot be guaranteed, and the results are not an accurate representation of all eyewitness testimonies, so the findings should be viewed with caution.

Deffenbacher - the Inverted U theory

Review of 21 studies on anxiety and eyewitness memory

o 10 of the 21 studies = linked higher arousal to increased accuracy

o 11 of the 21 studies = linked higher arousal to decreased accuracy

= opposite findings

Yerkes-Dodson effect

- Arousal has a negative effect on performance

(Performance = memory recall)

- Moderate levels of arousal = beneficial

= Inverted U-shape

· Occasions where anxiety and arousal are only moderate are when the accuracy of the EWT would be enhanced

· On occasions when anxiety and arousal is too extreme or too low, then the accuracy of EWT would be reduced

AO3 Inverted U theory

P

= Further research that has attempted to overcome these contradictory research findings into the effect of anxiety on EWT comes from the Inverted U Theory. ​

EV

= Deffenbacher reviewed several studies into the impact of anxiety on EWT and found that on occasions where anxiety was too extreme, EWT was reduced, and where anxiety was too low, EWT was also reduced. ​

EX

= They concluded that the Yerkes-Dodson effect, with an inverted U-shaped graph, ...

LB

=...demonstrates that there is an optimal level of anxiety for enhanced EWT and that a moderate amount of physiological arousal can be beneficial for enhanced memory recall.