This document discusses how anxiety can affect eyewitness memory and testimony in criminal cases. It notes that:
- Anxiety experienced during an event can negatively impact how well and accurately details are encoded and stored in memory. Important details like a person's appearance may not be remembered.
- When recalling memories, gaps and inconsistencies can arise. Memory retrieval involves reconstructing memories based on prior knowledge, which can introduce inaccuracies.
- While some research has found anxiety harms recall accuracy, other studies have found it can improve memory of important details. The level of anxiety likely influences its effects, as the Yerkes-Dodson law proposes an optimal level for performance.
- Field research on eyewitness
1. Memory: specification
• Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness
testimony: misleading information,
including leading questions and post-event
discussion; anxiety
2. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• Psychological research has found that
fear or anxiety can affect how we
encode and store memories of events
like a violent crime.
• Encode = the process of seeing and
forming a memory.
3. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• Memory does not work like a video
recorder.
• We do not encode and store everything
we see and hear.
• We only see part of the event and store
some of that information.
4. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• If the event is sudden and shocking we may
only see some of the details and store that.
• Lots of important details like what the person
looked like, their gender, ethnicity, or age may
not be seen, encoded, and stored.
5. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• When questioned about the crime we
retrieve the stored memory .
• Gaps in our memory are filled with
information that we have previously
stored about similar events.
• Schemas : for events like crimes may fill in
gaps for the crime witnessed.
7. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• When questioned about the crime we
retrieve the stored memory .
• Gaps in our memory are filled with
information that we have previously
stored about similar events.
• Schemas : for events like crimes may fill in
gaps for the crime witnessed.
8. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• Research has found that anxiety can have
a negative effect on eyewitness memory.
• Fight or flight response is activated.
9.
10. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
Task 1
• Read p.31 of the memory booklet: ‘The
negative effects of anxiety on recall’.
Summarise Johnson and Scott (1976).
11. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• Research has also found anxiety can have
a positive effect on memory: it can
improve memory of important details
about a crime.
12.
13. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
Task 2
• Read p.32 of the memory booklet: ‘The positive
effects of anxiety on recall’. Summarise the
Yuille and Cutshall (1986) study.
14. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
Task 3
• Read p.33 of the memory booklet:
‘Explanations for contradictory findings.
How does the Yerkes-Dodson effect
explain conflicting research findings?
15. Anxiety: evaluation
• Findings of research on the weapons focus
effect may not tell us anything valid about the
effect of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness
memory.
• Johnson & Scott (1976)
• Findings may be due to surprise not anxiety.
16. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
• Lack of control
• Field studies are not controlled like lab
experiments.
• Yuille & Cuttshall (1986)
17. Eyewitness testimony: anxiety
Task 3
• Read p.33 of the memory booklet:
‘Explanations for contradictory findings.
How does the Yerkes-Dodson effect
explain conflicting research findings?
