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