✏️Eyewitness testimony: Anxiety
Johnson and Scott carried out a study which revealed that anxiety had a negative effect on
witnesses' recall. The researchers got participants to wait in a room and they were told they were
going to take part in a lab study. There were two conditions, low and high anxiety. In the low-anxiety
condition, participants heard a casual conversation and then saw a man walking through the waiting
room carrying a pen with grease in his hands. In the high anxiety condition, the participants heard a
heated conversation and the sound of breaking glass. This was then followed by a man walking
through the waiting room holding a knife covered in blood. This creates anxiety and weapon focus.
The participants were then asked to pick the man from a set of 50 photos. 49% of the participants
could identify the man from the low anxiety condition, whereas only 33% identified him in the high
anxiety condition. The tunnel theory of memory says that people remember the central features.
This suggests that the participants had weapon focus and therefore weren't looking at the man.
A study carried out by Yuille and Cutshall found that anxiety had a positive effect. The researchers
got witnesses from a real crime, where a gun-shop owner shot a thief dead. 13 witnesses agreed to
participate in the study. The participants were interviewed 4-5 months after the incident and the
information recalled was compared to the information the police received at the time of the crime.
The witnesses also rated how stressed they felt at the time of the crime. The witnesses were very
accurate in what they remembered and there were only a few smaller details that they
misremembered, such as age, weight and height. The participants who rated higher stress had the
highest accuracy, at about 88% of the information. The people who rated lower stress only recalled
75% of the information. This suggests that anxiety doesn't decrease the accuracy of eyewitness
testimony, and might enhance it.
Yerkes and Dodson came up with the inverted-U theory, which says that there is low and high stress
can lower recall, but having a medium amount of stress can enhance performance.
A limitation is that the anxiety might not be relevant to the weapon focus. Two researchers said that
the participants might have remembered the weapon because they were surprised by it, not
because they were stressed. Another researcher found that participants were worse at identifying
the criminal when the object was the most unexpected. This suggests that weapon focus could be
due to unusualness instead of anxiety.
A strength is that there is evidence supporting negative effects. Two researchers used heart rate
monitors on participants and took them to London Dungeons, putting the participants into low and
high-anxiety groups. The high-anxiety participants were less accurate in recalling specific people
than the low-anxiety group. This supports the idea that anxiety can have a negative effect on the
recall of events.
Another strength is that there is evidence supporting positive effects. Two researchers interviewed
real witnesses to a bank robbery. Some of them were direct victims in high anxiety situations, and
some of them were bystanders with less anxiety. The study found that the direct victims were more
accurate than the bystanders. This suggests that the accuracy of eyewitness testimony can be
improved with anxiety.
However, a counterpoint is that the researchers interviewed the witnesses a long time after the
bank robbery. This means that there are many things that the participants couldn’t have controlled
between the robbery and the interview, such as post-event discussions. Therefore the lack of control
over the study might be responsible for the amount of information the witnesses could remember,
not the anxiety.
Johnson and Scott carried out a study which revealed that anxiety had a negative effect on
witnesses' recall. The researchers got participants to wait in a room and they were told they were
going to take part in a lab study. There were two conditions, low and high anxiety. In the low-anxiety
condition, participants heard a casual conversation and then saw a man walking through the waiting
room carrying a pen with grease in his hands. In the high anxiety condition, the participants heard a
heated conversation and the sound of breaking glass. This was then followed by a man walking
through the waiting room holding a knife covered in blood. This creates anxiety and weapon focus.
The participants were then asked to pick the man from a set of 50 photos. 49% of the participants
could identify the man from the low anxiety condition, whereas only 33% identified him in the high
anxiety condition. The tunnel theory of memory says that people remember the central features.
This suggests that the participants had weapon focus and therefore weren't looking at the man.
A study carried out by Yuille and Cutshall found that anxiety had a positive effect. The researchers
got witnesses from a real crime, where a gun-shop owner shot a thief dead. 13 witnesses agreed to
participate in the study. The participants were interviewed 4-5 months after the incident and the
information recalled was compared to the information the police received at the time of the crime.
The witnesses also rated how stressed they felt at the time of the crime. The witnesses were very
accurate in what they remembered and there were only a few smaller details that they
misremembered, such as age, weight and height. The participants who rated higher stress had the
highest accuracy, at about 88% of the information. The people who rated lower stress only recalled
75% of the information. This suggests that anxiety doesn't decrease the accuracy of eyewitness
testimony, and might enhance it.
Yerkes and Dodson came up with the inverted-U theory, which says that there is low and high stress
can lower recall, but having a medium amount of stress can enhance performance.
A limitation is that the anxiety might not be relevant to the weapon focus. Two researchers said that
the participants might have remembered the weapon because they were surprised by it, not
because they were stressed. Another researcher found that participants were worse at identifying
the criminal when the object was the most unexpected. This suggests that weapon focus could be
due to unusualness instead of anxiety.
A strength is that there is evidence supporting negative effects. Two researchers used heart rate
monitors on participants and took them to London Dungeons, putting the participants into low and
high-anxiety groups. The high-anxiety participants were less accurate in recalling specific people
than the low-anxiety group. This supports the idea that anxiety can have a negative effect on the
recall of events.
Another strength is that there is evidence supporting positive effects. Two researchers interviewed
real witnesses to a bank robbery. Some of them were direct victims in high anxiety situations, and
some of them were bystanders with less anxiety. The study found that the direct victims were more
accurate than the bystanders. This suggests that the accuracy of eyewitness testimony can be
improved with anxiety.
However, a counterpoint is that the researchers interviewed the witnesses a long time after the
bank robbery. This means that there are many things that the participants couldn’t have controlled
between the robbery and the interview, such as post-event discussions. Therefore the lack of control
over the study might be responsible for the amount of information the witnesses could remember,
not the anxiety.
