FACTORS AFFECTING THE ACCURACY OF EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY - ANXIETY

JOHNSON AND SCOTT

• Johnson and Scott (1976) demonstrated that anxiety has a negative effect on the accuracy of EWT.
  The high-anxiety condition overheard a heated argument in the neighbouring room, with the sound of smashing glass and a man walking through the waiting room with a bloody paper-knife, as opposed to a greasy pen in the low-anxiety condition. When asked to identify the man, participants in the high-anxiety condition experienced 16% lower rates of accurate recall, compared to the low-anxiety condition. This may be explained by the tunnel theory of memory and the weapon focus effect, where our attention is drawn towards the weapon as a source of anxiety.

YUILLE AND CUTSHALL

• The positive effect of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT was demonstrated by Yuille and Cutshall

(1986), who followed up 13 eyewitnesses, 5 months after a real-life shooting at a shop in Canada.

The researchers found that eyewitness accuracy was still high after this period, with an 11% higher accuracy of recall for those eyewitnesses who ranked their anxiety as 'high' (compared to 'low') at the time of the shooting and using a 7-point anxiety scale. There were, however, small discrepancies over estimates of height, weight and clothing. This supports the idea that heightened anxiety draws our attention to external cues through the 'fight or flight' response, where such attention may have given us an evolutionary advantage by increasing our chances of escaping and survival.

WEAKNESS - Yerkes dodson law

• The Yerkes-Dodson Law suggests that there is an 'inverted-U' relationship between increasing arousal and increasing performance (in this case the accuracy of EWT), with moderate arousal yielding the highest levels of performance. However, this can be considered as an overly-simplified explanation of anxiety because it does not take into account the multiple factors which make up arousal i.e. cognitive, behavioural, emotional etc.

WEAKNESS - weapon focus effect may be testing for suprise, not anxiety

• The weapon focus effect may be testing for the effects of surprise rather than anxiety. For example, Pickel found that the highest levels of accuracy of EWT were experienced in the condition with unusualness i.e. a raw chicken in a hairdressing salon. This suggests that the weapon focus effect can only be used to explain certain influences of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT.

WEAKNESS - ethical issues

There are significant ethical issues associated with exposing participants to distressing images of a car crash (Johnson and Scott) and forcing them to recall traumatic crimes which have occurred in the past (Yuille and Cutshall). This breaches the BPS guideline of the right of the participant to be protected from psychological harm, thus meaning that a cost-benefit analysis would be needed to compare the associated ethical costs with the benefits of increased knowledge of the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT.

WEAKNESS - real life studies are susceptible to biasing effects of extraneous variables

• Real-life studies, particularly with the use of field studies, are particularly susceptible to the biasing effects of extraneous variables which have not been controlled. For example, Yuille and Cutshall could not have controlled the influence of post-event discussions, which has been suggested to reduce the accuracy of EWT, as demonstrated by Gabbert et al. This, alongside media influences in the form of TV report, and the effects of individual schemas, means that field studies of EWT may be flawed in that they lack reliability.

STRENGTH - contribution to understanding of memory and arousal

Contribution to Understanding of Memory and Arousal:

• The study of anxiety in eyewitness testimony ties into broader psychological theories of memory, particularly stress and memory recall. Research on how anxiety affects cognitive processes helps to refine our understanding of how emotions can either facilitate or hinder memory, offering insights into how memory retrieval works under stress.

• It also adds depth to theories like fight or flight response, where high anxiety may result in enhanced focus on specific details (relevant to survival), potentially aiding the recall of critical event details in high-stress situations.