Eyewitness Testimony:
Factors affecting
(Anxiety, proximity, weapon focus)
Anxiety
Proximity
Weapon focus
A state of emotional & physical arousal
Emotions- worried thoughts
& feelings of tension
Physical changes- Increased
heart rate and sweatiness
A normal reaction but can affect
the accuracy & detail
Inverted
U Theory
Deffenbacher (1983)
Yerkes-Dodson law-
originally an indicator of appropriate
stress for performance levels
Used to explain how anxiety levels
affect the accuracy of recall of events
Moderate amounts of anxiety:
Improved detail and accuracy up to
an optimal point, after which more anxiety leads to
decline in detail and accuracy
Witnesses concentration of weapons
Loftus (1987)
- Slides of customer in restaurant
- Customer holding gun
- Same customer holding chequebook
- Ps who saw guns focused on the gun
- Less likely to identify the customer from
chequebook photo
Strenghts
Weaknesses
Lab based experiments
= Low EV
Yuille & Cutshall
-Contradicts Loftus weapon focus
Ethical guidelines
- Johnson and Scott (expose Ps to bloody knife)
- Deception and protected from harm
Situational variable
How close the witness was to the incident
Affects memory recall
Supporting research
- Shows the different effects on recall