What factors make EWT unreliable?Discuss in pairs - feedback

Other factors that influence EWT

AnxietyAge

Individual Differences

Lesson Objectives

Must: Understand how anxiety affects recall ofEWT.

Should: Understand how the validity of labbased EWT studies can be questioned.

Could: Answer exam based questions.

AnxietyLoftus (1979) – The Weapon Effect

Participants were asked toe wait outside the lab and ‘overheard’ what they thought was a genuine exchange.

Condition 1 – Heard an amicable discussion aboutequipment failure and then a man came out with greasyhands holding a pen.

Condition 2 – Heard a hostile exchange and the sound ofbreaking furniture and then a man came out holding abloody knife and covered in blood.

AnxietyLoftus (1979)– The Weapon Focus Effect

Participants were given 50 photographs and asked to identify the manwho had come out of the lab.

People who witnessed the peaceful scene had a better recall and weremore accurate in recognising than those who witnessed the hostilecondition. Pen = 49% accurate recall, bloody knife = 39% accuraterecall.

Loftus believed that the anxiety caused by the weapon (blood stainedknife) narrowed the focus of the participant and took some attentionfrom the mans face.

Your Task

Discuss the validity of the Loftus study.

By validity we mean, to what extent are the findings ‘true’

It is useful to think about it in this way – what else could have caused these results? Did anything else influence them in any way?

Your Task

2010Explain why it might be better to carry out

research into eyewitness testimony in the real world, rather than in a laboratory. (3 marks)

Mark SchemeCandidates are likely to refer to the fact that in real lifesettings research has high validity because the findings can begeneralised to other similar situations. It is therefore morelikely to be relevant eg to eyewitness testimony in court cases.There are often real consequences/emotional impact in reallife which do not occur in laboratory investigations. In alaboratory participants may show demand characteristicsbecause they know they are in an experiment. This is less likely in realworld settings. Answers which refer to advantages of laboratoryresearch or disadvantages of real world research are not relevant andshould not receive credit. 1 mark for a brief explanation eg higherecological validity. Further marks for some elaboration as above.

Examiners Comments

This question was generally answered well. Most candidates focusedon the higher ecological validity provided by real-world studies.Weaker answers simply made this point without any elaboration.

Better answers explained why a real-world setting would provide moreecological validity – usually in terms of heightened anxiety and/orconsequentiality associated with real-life events.

The best answers made reference to EWT studies rather than simplystating the general advantages of real-life studies over laboratory

studies.

Anxiety Christianson & Hubinette (1993)

In contrast Christianson reported that in real lifeincidents involving high levels of anxiety and stressthat recall can be more accurate and long lasting.They conducted a survey of 110 participants whohad witnessed a genuine bank robbery. Some of thepeople had been bystanders (someone who saw theevent) and some had been directly threatened by thebank robbers. Those who had experienced the greatestanxiety (had been threatened) had a more detailed andaccurate recall than bystanders.

Your Task – complete the A02

A positive criticism of the Christianson study was that it was a natural experiment,

this means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Anxiety

Deffenbacher suggests this contradiction may beexplained by the Yerkes – Dodson law (1908)which states that performance improves withincreased arousal up to an optimal point(accuracy is poor when arousal is either too lowor too high but better when arousal ismoderate).

Yerkes – Dodson Law

Anxiety

Deffenbacher (2004) found that heightenedstress has a debilitating effect on eye witnessrecall for adults, but not for children.

Your Task

Use your textbook to find one more study thatlooks about anxiety and EWT.

5 minutes then feedback.

Anxiety

Burns (1982) found participants who saw a violent version of a crime where a boywas shot in the face had impaired recall for eventsleading up to the incident. However, in a real lifestudy Yuille and Cutshill (1986) found witnesseswho had been most distressed at the time of ashooting gave the most accurate account fivemonths later.

Ethics Alert

Exam Style Essay Questions

Discuss how anxiety can effect the accuracy of eye witness testimony (12 marks).

To what extent does anxiety affect the accuracy of eye witness testimony? (12 marks)

Susan was held at gun point in a bank robberyHow might this have affected her recall of events?

(12 marks).

Essay Plans – Your Task

Under each exam question make a bullet pointplan of how you would answer each question.

Essay PlanLoftus (1979) Anxiety affects accuracy of EWT. – Outline of the research

Validity of the findings – lab study against real life.

One study that did take place in the real world was. . . . . Christianson...

A positive criticism of this research . . . natural study which means. . ....

Deffenbacher claims this contradiction can be explained by the Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal . . . . .

Additionally Deffenbacher stated that age . . . .

Burns . . . .Ethics of research

Yuille and Cutshill (1986) – 5 months later

Your Task

2010 An American space shuttle exploded soon after it was launched. All

of the astronauts on board werekilled. Crowds of people were watching, including

friends and relatives of the astronauts. Six months after the explosion, a student decided to investigate the accuracy of some

of the eyewitnesses’ memory of this event.

Explain how anxiety might have affected eyewitness testimony of this event. Refer to psychological research in your answer. (6

marks)

Mark SchemeCandidates must refer to research where the anxiety component is clear.Candidates might refer to the Yerkes-Dodson law which suggests moderate anxiety isassociated with better recall than very high or very low anxiety. In this case friendsand relatives might show worse recall than other people in the crowd. Laboratorybased research has generally shown impaired recall in high anxiety conditions. InLoftus’s (1979) weapon focus experiment more participants correctly identified aperson when they were holding a pen (49%) than when they were holding a knifecovered in blood (33%). Loftus and Burns (1982) found participants who saw a violentversion of a crime where a boy was shot in the face had impaired recall for eventsleading up to the incident. However, in a real life study Yuille and Cutshill (1986) foundwitnesses who had been most distressed at the time of a shooting gave the mostaccurate account five months later. Also Christianson and Hubinette (1993) foundvictims of genuine bank robberies were more accurate in their recall than bystanders.There is a range of acceptable answers to this question and marks should be given foreffective use of the material. Answers which do not make explicit reference to thisevent should be awarded a maximum of 4 marks.

Can You?

Understand how anxiety affects recall of EWT.

Understand how the validity of lab based EWTstudies can be questioned.

Answer exam based questions.