Anxiety and Eye Witness Testimony Deffenbacher et al.

Did meta-analysis of 18 studies which looked at effects of heightened anxiety of the accuracy of EWT From these studies its possible to conclude that there is support the for the hypothesis that high levels of stress reduce accuracy of EWT

However some studies have found that emotional arousal might actually improve the accuracy of EWT Yuille and Cutshall Method: Interviewed 13 witnesses of violent street crime 4-5 months after the police interviewed them. They compared results with police report and their findings

Findings: Considerable accuracy between both interviews despite two leading questions being used Victims that were most distressed e.g. nightmares, had most accurate recall This suggests that emotion and anxiety doesnt reduce accuracy of EWT but can actually be reliable.

Evaluation: high mundane realism and ecological validity as not laboratory experience. But only 13 participants make it less generalised The next set of research also backs up the idea that anxiety increases accuracy of recall Christianson and Hubinette Questioned 58 real witnesses to bank robberies. Witnesses who had been threatened in some way were more accurate in their recall and had more detailed memories than those less affected

This provides further evidence that emotion/anxiety enhances EWT recall. Deffenbacher uses Yerkes Dodson Law to try explain the contradiction in findings. Many researchers believe that anxiety effects in EWT are curvilinear. There isnt a simple relationship between emotional arousal and accuracy According to Deffenbacher, studies could be dealing with different points on the curve and hence causing the different results.

Laboratory studies tend to show impaired recall with anxiety. However, in real life, anxiety is associated with good recall from eyewitnesses There is evidence for weapon focus and police should be aware that accuracy can be hampered by the presence of a weapon. Weapon-focus effect (Johnson and Scott-1976) There is evidence that in violent crimes, the witness may focus more on weapons than the peripheral details. Loftus et al. used 2 conditions one involving a weapon, one not. With both conditions participants heard a discussion in the other room. With condition 1 they saw a man leaving holding a pen and with grease on his hands. Other condition saw a man leaving with a paperknife covered in blood. Findings: When asked to identify the man from 50 photos, participants in condition 1 were 49% accurate and pps in condition 2 were 33% accurate. Conclusion: This suggests that the weapon distracted the eyewitness and hence explains why some have poor recall of certain details for violent crimes.