Anxiety and eyewitness testimony | AQA A-Level Psychology Revision
Updated: Sep 9
For 7182 specification, first teach in September 2025
AQA A-Level Psychology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time: 40 minutes
These Anxiety and eyewitness testimony A-Level Psychology revision notes examine why emotional arousal can have different effects on witness memory. High anxiety may narrow attention onto a threatening object and reduce recall of other details. However, anxiety can also increase alertness and make an important event more memorable. You will compare controlled laboratory evidence with research involving genuine crimes, apply the explanations to unfamiliar witnesses and evaluate why studies in this area often produce contradictory findings.
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Define anxiety in the context of eyewitness testimony.
Explain how anxiety may reduce eyewitness accuracy.
Explain how anxiety may improve eyewitness accuracy.
Explain weapon focus and tunnel theory.
Apply the inverted-U explanation to different levels of anxiety.
Analyse contradictory research findings.
Evaluate laboratory and real-life research into anxiety and eyewitness testimony.
These objectives follow the planned Lesson 9 focus on explaining, analysing and evaluating the effects of anxiety on eyewitness accuracy.
Revision Notes đź“š
Anxiety and eyewitness testimony A-Level Psychology revision overview
Anxiety is an emotional state involving worry, tension and physiological arousal.
A witness might experience anxiety because:
They believe they are in danger.
Someone else is being threatened.
A weapon is present.
The event is unexpected.
They fear the consequences of what they have seen.
They are later questioned about a serious incident.
Research into anxiety and eyewitness testimony has produced contradictory findings.
Some studies suggest that anxiety:
Narrows attention.
Distracts the witness.
Reduces identification accuracy.
Impairs recall of peripheral details.
Other studies suggest that anxiety:
Increases alertness.
Makes an important event memorable.
Strengthens recall of central details.
Improves accuracy among genuine witnesses.
The relationship is therefore more complicated than saying that anxiety is always helpful or always harmful.
What is eyewitness accuracy?
Eyewitness accuracy is the extent to which a witness’s account corresponds with what actually happened.
Accuracy may be measured through:
Correct identification of a person.
Number of correct details recalled.
Number of incorrect details reported.
Accuracy of a description.
Correct recall of the sequence of events.
Recognition of objects or photographs.
Resistance to misleading information.
A witness could be accurate about some details but inaccurate about others.
For example, someone might accurately remember:
The weapon.
The offender’s actions.
The direction in which the offender ran.
But inaccurately remember:
The offender’s clothing.
Other people at the scene.
The colour of a nearby vehicle.
This distinction between central and peripheral information is important when analysing anxiety.
How anxiety may reduce eyewitness accuracy
Limited attentional capacity
Attention has a limited capacity.
During a threatening event, the witness must process:
The source of danger.
Their own physical response.
Possible routes of escape.
The actions of other people.
Information needed to make rapid decisions.
Anxiety may use some of the witness’s attentional resources.
This leaves less attention available for encoding the full event.
The process can be summarised as:
Threat produces anxiety → attention becomes restricted → fewer details are encoded → later recall is less complete
If information is not attended to during the event, it may never be stored in a form that can later be retrieved.
Tunnel theory
Tunnel theory proposes that high emotional arousal narrows the focus of attention.
The witness concentrates on the most central or threatening part of the event and processes fewer peripheral details.
This is similar to looking through a tunnel:
The central object remains visible.
Information around the edges receives less attention.
For example, during a robbery, a witness may focus on:
A weapon pointed towards them.
The offender’s threatening movements.
The possibility of being injured.
They may pay less attention to:
The offender’s face.
The colour of the offender’s clothing.
Other people in the room.
Objects near the doorway.
The route taken afterwards.
Central and peripheral details
A central detail is directly connected with the main action or source of threat.
A peripheral detail is less central to the immediate event.
Possible central details | Possible peripheral details |
The weapon | The colour of a wall |
The offender’s threatening action | The position of furniture |
A demand made during a robbery | Other customers’ clothing |
The direction from which danger approached | Objects elsewhere in the room |
Anxiety may strengthen memory for central information while weakening memory for peripheral information.
This helps explain why a witness can appear both accurate and inaccurate.
Weapon focus
Weapon focus occurs when the presence of a weapon draws attention away from other details, particularly the offender’s face.
A weapon is:
Threatening.
Emotionally arousing.
Relevant to personal safety.
Often visually distinctive.
Central to the event.
The witness may therefore devote considerable attention to it.
As a result, they may later provide:
A detailed description of the weapon.
A less accurate description of the offender.
Poorer facial identification.
Fewer details about the surrounding environment.
Applying weapon focus
Kai witnesses a robbery in which the offender holds a knife.
During a later identification procedure, Kai remembers the knife clearly but struggles to recognise the offender’s face.
Weapon focus could explain this because:
The knife created anxiety.
Kai’s attention narrowed onto the threatening object.
Less attention was available for encoding the offender’s facial features.
Identification accuracy was therefore reduced.
A weak application would state:
Kai was anxious, so he forgot the offender.
A stronger application identifies the attentional mechanism:
Kai’s anxiety may have produced weapon focus, causing him to concentrate on the knife rather than the offender’s face. The face was therefore encoded less effectively, reducing identification accuracy.
Johnson and Scott’s research
Procedure
Johnson and Scott investigated whether the presence of a threatening object would affect eyewitness identification.
Participants were seated in a waiting area and believed they were waiting to take part in an experiment.
They overheard activity in a nearby room.
In one condition, a man emerged holding an object such as a pen after an apparently ordinary incident.
In the more threatening condition, a man emerged holding a blood-covered knife after participants had heard an argument.
Participants were later asked to identify the man.
Findings
Identification was more accurate in the pen condition than in the knife condition.
In official AQA assessment materials, the pen condition is reported as producing 49% correct identification, while identification was lower when the man carried the blood-covered knife.
Conclusion
The findings support weapon focus.
Participants in the knife condition may have experienced greater anxiety and focused on the weapon.
This reduced the attention available for encoding the man’s facial features.
The sequence is:
Knife creates anxiety → attention focuses on weapon → face receives less attention → identification becomes less accurate
Why this research matters
The study links anxiety with a specific type of eyewitness error.
It does not simply show that anxious participants remembered fewer details.
It suggests that anxiety affected where attention was directed.
The results therefore support tunnel theory as an explanation of reduced eyewitness accuracy.
Alternative explanation: unusualness or surprise
Was the knife simply unexpected?
The knife condition differed from the pen condition in more than anxiety.
A blood-covered knife in a research waiting area is:
Unusual.
Unexpected.
Visually distinctive.
Inconsistent with the setting.
Participants may have looked at the knife because it was surprising, not because they were anxious.
This is a possible confounding variable.
The study may therefore have measured the effect of unusualness rather than the effect of anxiety alone.
Pickel’s research
Pickel investigated whether attention was attracted by threat or by an object’s unusualness within a particular context.
Participants viewed situations involving objects that varied in:
Threat.
Expectedness.
Unusualness.
Objects included examples such as:
A handgun.
Scissors.
A wallet.
A raw chicken.
Identification accuracy was affected when an object was unexpected in the setting.
This suggests that the weapon-focus effect may partly result from surprise.
Why Pickel challenges weapon focus
If any unusual object narrows attention, then poorer identification in a weapon condition cannot automatically be attributed to anxiety.
The process might instead be:
Unexpected object appears → attention is captured → less attention reaches the person’s face → identification accuracy declines
This is a cognitive attentional explanation rather than a purely emotional explanation.
A balanced interpretation
Weapons may affect memory through both:
Anxiety caused by threat.
Attention captured by unusualness.
The explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
A blood-covered knife may be both threatening and unexpected.
This makes it difficult to separate the effect of emotional arousal from the effect of visual distinctiveness.
How anxiety may improve eyewitness accuracy
Increased alertness
Anxiety can increase physiological arousal.
A moderate increase in arousal may make a witness:
More alert.
More attentive.
More aware that the event is important.
Motivated to observe what is happening.
More likely to rehearse the event afterwards.
An important and emotional event may also be more memorable than an ordinary event.
The process could be:
Anxiety increases alertness → attention to important information improves → stronger encoding occurs → later recall is more accurate
Emotional significance
A genuine crime may have personal consequences for the witness.
They may repeatedly:
Think about the event.
Discuss it with investigators.
Mentally replay what happened.
Attempt to remember important details.
This may strengthen memory for some aspects of the event.
By contrast, a participant watching a short laboratory film may have little reason to remember it accurately.
Recall of central information
Anxiety may improve memory for details directly connected with the main event.
For example, a victim of a robbery may accurately remember:
The offender’s demand.
The sequence of threatening actions.
Where the weapon was pointed.
How the offender entered and left.
The same witness may still remember peripheral details less accurately.
It is therefore important to ask:
Accuracy of which information?
A study measuring central details may find improved accuracy, while a study measuring facial recognition or peripheral details may find reduced accuracy.
Yuille and Cutshall’s research
A real-life investigation
Yuille and Cutshall studied witnesses to a genuine shooting.
The witnesses were interviewed several months after the event and their later accounts were compared with information collected earlier.
The witnesses also reported how distressed or anxious they had been.
Findings
Witnesses who had experienced greater distress at the time of the shooting gave highly accurate accounts several months later.
The most distressed witnesses were among the most accurate.
Conclusion
The findings suggest that anxiety does not inevitably reduce eyewitness accuracy.
In a genuine, personally significant event, high anxiety may be associated with accurate and lasting memories.
This contradicts the simple conclusion that:
High anxiety always produces poor eyewitness testimony.
Why this study is valuable
The witnesses experienced:
A genuine event.
Real emotional involvement.
Natural levels of anxiety.
Real consequences.
This gives the research greater ecological validity than a study in which participants watch a film or staged event.
A limitation of the study
Because the shooting was not created or controlled by researchers, many variables could not be standardised.
Witnesses may have differed in:
Where they were standing.
What they could see.
How personally involved they were.
Whether they discussed the event.
How often they were interviewed.
Exposure to news reports.
The length of time they observed the event.
It is therefore difficult to conclude that anxiety alone caused the accuracy of their accounts.
Christianson and Hubinette’s research
Christianson and Hubinette studied witnesses to genuine bank robberies.
They compared:
Victims who had been directly threatened.
Bystanders who had been less directly involved.
The victims were likely to have experienced greater anxiety.
However, they showed more accurate recall than the bystanders.
This supports the view that anxiety can improve eyewitness accuracy, particularly when the event is personally significant.
Interpreting the findings
The victims may have:
Paid closer attention.
Recognised that the event was important.
Focused on central actions.
Rehearsed the event afterwards.
Experienced a memorable level of arousal.
However, victims and bystanders differed in more than anxiety.
The victims may have been:
Closer to the offender.
More directly involved.
Watching the event for longer.
More motivated to remember.
These differences make cause and effect difficult to establish.
Comparing laboratory and real-life evidence
Laboratory research | Real-life research |
Often finds that anxiety reduces identification or recall | Often finds that anxious witnesses can be highly accurate |
Anxiety is created through staged or filmed events | Anxiety occurs naturally |
Variables can be controlled | Variables are difficult to control |
Events may have limited personal significance | Events have genuine consequences |
Cause and effect can be investigated | Causal conclusions are weaker |
May lack ecological validity | Usually has greater ecological validity |
Participants know they are in research | Witnesses experience an unexpected event |
The contradictory findings may partly reflect differences in:
Intensity of anxiety.
Personal involvement.
Type of memory test.
Central or peripheral details.
How anxiety is measured.
Realism of the event.
The inverted-U explanation
The Yerkes-Dodson law
The Yerkes-Dodson law proposes an inverted-U relationship between arousal and performance.
Applied to eyewitness testimony:
Very low anxiety may produce low attention.
Moderate anxiety may improve alertness and accuracy.
Very high anxiety may overwhelm cognitive processing and reduce accuracy.
The relationship can be represented as:
Low anxiety → relatively poor performanceModerate anxiety → best performanceVery high anxiety → declining performance
Why the relationship is an inverted U
If anxiety is plotted along the horizontal axis and accuracy along the vertical axis:
Accuracy rises as anxiety increases from a low level.
Accuracy reaches an optimal point.
Accuracy falls when anxiety becomes excessive.
The graph would therefore resemble an upside-down U.
Low anxiety
When anxiety is very low, the witness may:
Pay limited attention.
View the event as unimportant.
Become distracted.
Make little effort to remember details.
For example, someone watching a routine laboratory film may not expect a later memory test and may process the event only superficially.
Moderate anxiety
At a moderate level, anxiety may:
Increase alertness.
Focus attention on relevant details.
Signal that the event is important.
Improve the strength of encoding.
Eyewitness accuracy may therefore be highest at an optimal level of arousal.
Very high anxiety
At a very high level, anxiety may:
Narrow attention excessively.
Produce panic.
Use limited cognitive resources.
Impair concentration.
Reduce processing of peripheral details.
Make identification more difficult.
At this point, increased arousal becomes harmful rather than helpful.
Applying the inverted-U explanation
Three people witness the same argument.
Alex believes it is a harmless rehearsal and experiences almost no anxiety.
Beth feels concerned and pays close attention.
Carl believes someone is about to be seriously injured and panics.
The inverted-U explanation predicts that:
Alex may remember poorly because the event did not receive sufficient attention.
Beth may give the most accurate account because moderate anxiety increased alertness.
Carl may remember less accurately because very high anxiety disrupted processing.
The difficulty of defining optimal anxiety
The optimal level may differ according to:
The individual.
The task.
The seriousness of the event.
Previous experience.
Whether central or peripheral details are tested.
How anxiety is interpreted.
A level that helps one witness may overwhelm another.
The inverted-U explanation is therefore useful, but it does not give one universal anxiety level that guarantees accurate memory.
Anxiety and attention
Narrowing can help and harm
A narrowed attentional focus is not always entirely negative.
It may:
Improve memory for the central threat.
Reduce memory for surrounding details.
For example, a witness may accurately remember what the offender demanded but fail to notice another person leaving the building.
The same attentional process has produced:
Better central recall.
Poorer peripheral recall.
This helps reconcile apparently contradictory research findings.
Identification versus event recall
Studies may measure different outcomes.
A witness could:
Accurately describe the event.
Fail to identify the offender.
Weapon focus may especially reduce facial identification because attention is directed towards the weapon.
Real-life anxiety may still strengthen memory for:
The sequence of events.
The offender’s demands.
The most threatening actions.
Researchers must therefore avoid treating all measures of eyewitness accuracy as interchangeable.
Immediate and delayed recall
Anxiety might also affect immediate and delayed recall differently.
A highly emotional event may be vividly remembered, but later accounts can still be affected by:
Repeated retelling.
News coverage.
Retrieval conditions.
A witness’s later account therefore reflects more than the anxiety experienced during the original event.
Measuring anxiety
Self-report measures
Researchers may ask witnesses to rate how anxious they felt.
Advantages include:
Direct access to the witness’s subjective experience.
Easy comparison between individuals.
A numerical measure can be produced.
However, self-reports may be inaccurate because:
Witnesses may not remember their original anxiety.
Different people interpret rating scales differently.
Responses may be affected by social desirability.
Later knowledge may alter how the event is rated.
A person may confuse fear with excitement or surprise.
Physiological measures
Anxiety may also be assessed through physiological arousal, such as:
Heart rate.
Skin conductance.
Breathing rate.
Physical signs of stress.
These measures can be more objective than a self-report.
However, physiological arousal does not identify the emotion causing it.
An increased heart rate could reflect:
Fear.
Surprise.
Physical effort.
Excitement.
Anger.
A measure of arousal is not automatically a pure measure of anxiety.
Behavioural assumptions
Researchers sometimes assume that one condition is more anxiety-provoking than another.
For example:
Knife condition = high anxiety.
Pen condition = low anxiety.
This assumption may not be equally accurate for every participant.
Some participants may find the knife highly frightening, while others may recognise the event as staged.
Without directly measuring anxiety, it is difficult to know whether the intended manipulation worked.
Evaluating laboratory research
Strong control
Laboratory studies allow researchers to control:
What participants see.
How long the event lasts.
The viewing conditions.
The delay before recall.
The questions asked.
The identification procedure.
The object carried by the target person.
This makes it easier to investigate whether a particular anxiety manipulation affects accuracy.
Establishing cause and effect
When participants are allocated to different conditions and other variables are controlled, differences in eyewitness accuracy may be attributed to the manipulated factor.
For example:
Knife condition produces lower identification than pen condition.
This supports a causal interpretation, although only if the knife condition differs mainly in anxiety.
Replication
A standardised laboratory procedure can be repeated.
Other researchers can use:
The same film.
The same instructions.
The same memory test.
Similar anxiety conditions.
Replication helps assess whether the findings are reliable.
Limited ecological validity
A staged incident does not fully reproduce a genuine crime.
Laboratory participants know that:
They are in a research environment.
The event may not be real.
They are unlikely to be harmed.
Their account has no legal consequences.
A real witness may experience much stronger and more complex emotions.
The anxiety produced in a laboratory may therefore be qualitatively different from real fear.
Demand characteristics
Participants may guess the aim of the research.
For example, they may assume that:
The weapon is important.
They will later be asked to identify the person.
The researcher expects poorer memory in the threatening condition.
They may alter their attention or responses accordingly.
This reduces internal validity if behaviour reflects guessed expectations rather than the natural effect of anxiety.
Ethical limitations
Researchers must protect participants from psychological harm.
They cannot ethically create the same level of danger experienced during a genuine violent crime.
This produces a difficult trade-off:
Strong anxiety would make the study more realistic.
Strong anxiety could expose participants to unacceptable distress.
Laboratory studies may therefore underestimate the effects of genuine fear.
Evaluating real-life research
High ecological validity
Witnesses to genuine crimes experience naturally occurring:
Anxiety.
Personal involvement.
Unexpectedness.
Consequences.
Motivation to remember.
Their behaviour may therefore reflect real eyewitness memory more accurately than responses to a film.
Natural anxiety cannot be randomly allocated
Researchers cannot randomly assign people to become victims or bystanders during a real crime.
This means that groups may differ in many ways.
For example, victims may:
Stand closer to the offender.
Receive more direct attention from the offender.
Have more opportunity to observe.
Be interviewed more thoroughly.
Rehearse the event more often.
The findings may be caused by these differences rather than anxiety.
Lack of control over post-event information
Before researchers conduct a later interview, witnesses may have:
Spoken to other witnesses.
Answered police questions.
Read news reports.
Seen photographs.
Repeated the event to friends and family.
Their accounts may therefore be affected by misleading information as well as anxiety.
This makes it difficult to isolate one factor.
Verification of accuracy
In real crimes, researchers may not know every detail of what happened.
They may compare a witness’s later account with:
An earlier police statement.
Other witness reports.
Physical evidence.
Video recordings.
However, these sources may themselves be incomplete.
It may therefore be difficult to calculate perfectly accurate eyewitness scores.
Less risk of demand characteristics
Genuine witnesses did not experience the original event because they knew they were in a memory study.
Their attention during the event is therefore more natural.
This reduces demand characteristics at the time of encoding.
However, witnesses may still alter later reports because they know their accuracy is being investigated.
Contradictory evidence
Why the findings may differ
Research may produce different conclusions because studies differ in:
Whether the event is real or staged.
The level of anxiety produced.
The measure of anxiety.
The details tested.
Whether recognition or recall is used.
The witness’s personal involvement.
The length of the delay.
The presence of a weapon.
Whether surprise is controlled.
Contradiction does not necessarily mean that one study must be wrong.
The studies may be examining different points along the inverted-U relationship or different types of eyewitness information.
Laboratory anxiety may be too low
A staged event may produce only mild arousal.
If participants remain below the optimal level, increased anxiety might improve performance rather than impair it.
Alternatively, a shocking laboratory event might narrow attention without reproducing the personal significance of a genuine crime.
Real-life witnesses may be highly motivated
A victim may be highly motivated to remember an offender.
Motivation could improve:
Attention.
Rehearsal.
Willingness to concentrate during questioning.
This may contribute to the greater accuracy found in some field studies.
Different details may be tested
Weapon-focus studies often examine:
Recognition of the offender’s face.
Real-life studies may examine:
Recall of the central event.
The offender’s actions.
The sequence of what happened.
Anxiety could reduce facial identification while improving memory for the main actions.
Practical implications
Police should not dismiss anxious witnesses
A witness who was highly anxious is not automatically unreliable.
Investigators should consider:
What the witness focused on.
Whether the detail was central or peripheral.
Whether a weapon was present.
The witness’s viewing position.
How soon the statement was taken.
Whether misleading information was received later.
Statements should be obtained promptly
An early account can reduce the opportunity for later information to affect memory.
Witnesses should ideally be:
Interviewed individually.
Asked neutral questions.
Encouraged to report uncertainty.
Protected from co-witness contamination.
Asked what they personally observed.
Interview techniques
The cognitive interview uses strategies intended to improve witness retrieval without relying on suggestive questioning.
These include recalling the context and reporting every detail.
The full procedure and its effectiveness are explored in techniques designed to improve eyewitness recall.
Weapon presence should guide questioning
When a weapon was present, investigators should recognise that the witness may:
Recall the weapon accurately.
Have weaker memory for the offender’s face.
Miss peripheral information.
Remain confident despite incomplete encoding.
Questions should therefore separate different aspects of the event rather than treating accuracy as one overall quality.
Applying anxiety to unfamiliar situations
Application structure
Use the following four stages:
Identify the witness’s likely level of anxiety.
Select a relevant detail from the scenario.
Explain the psychological mechanism.
Predict the effect on a particular measure of accuracy.
Applying weapon focus
The offender points a gun at Elena, which is likely to create high anxiety. Tunnel theory predicts that her attention will narrow onto the gun. She may therefore remember the weapon but encode fewer details of the offender’s face, reducing identification accuracy.
Applying improved alertness
Arun feels moderately anxious when he hears an argument developing. The arousal may increase his alertness and encourage him to focus on the central actions. This could improve his recall of the sequence of events.
Applying very high anxiety
Beth believes her life is in immediate danger and begins to panic. Her arousal may be above the optimal level described by the inverted-U explanation. Cognitive processing could become disrupted, reducing the accuracy of her account.
Applying contradictory evidence
A strong answer may acknowledge both possibilities:
Although the weapon could cause tunnel vision and reduce facial identification, the emotional importance of the event may strengthen Beth’s memory for central actions. Anxiety may therefore have different effects on different details.
Evaluating an application
Avoid assuming that a scenario proves anxiety caused the result.
Other explanations could include:
The object was unusual.
The witness had a poor viewing position.
The event happened quickly.
A leading question altered the answer.
Co-witness discussion contaminated memory.
The identification procedure was unfair.
A developed answer distinguishes anxiety from these alternatives.
Planning an extended answer
A 16-mark response could follow this structure:
Define anxiety and eyewitness accuracy.
Explain tunnel theory and weapon focus.
Describe Johnson and Scott.
Evaluate the surprise explanation using Pickel.
Explain how moderate anxiety may improve performance.
Describe Yuille and Cutshall or Christianson and Hubinette.
Compare laboratory and field research.
Apply the inverted-U explanation.
Evaluate measurement, control and ethics.
Reach a balanced conclusion.
Balanced conclusion
A suitable conclusion would recognise that anxiety does not have one fixed effect.
The overall pattern suggests:
Moderate anxiety may increase alertness.
Extreme anxiety may reduce processing.
Threat can narrow attention.
Central and peripheral details may be affected differently.
Real-life significance may strengthen memory.
Study methods influence the findings.
Hints from the Examiner Reports đź’ˇ
Examiner hint:Â Research can include both studies and explanations. The Yerkes-Dodson law, weapon focus and tunnel theory can be used alongside named investigations.
Examiner hint:Â Strong answers recognise that anxiety may either improve or reduce accuracy. Avoid presenting only one side of the evidence.
Examiner hint:Â Use contradictory findings to build discussion. Johnson and Scott can be compared with real-life evidence from Yuille and Cutshall.
Examiner hint:Â Link the contradiction to levels of anxiety, the realism of the event or the type of detail being remembered.
Examiner hint: Pickel’s research is most useful when clearly linked to the alternative explanation that unusualness or surprise, rather than anxiety, attracts attention.
Examiner hint:Â Do not drift into lengthy descriptions of leading questions or post-event discussion when the question focuses on anxiety.
Examiner hint:Â Methodological comments must be relevant. Explain why demand characteristics, artificial anxiety or lack of control affect conclusions about anxiety and EWT.
Examiner hint:Â Ethical issues should be developed. Researchers cannot expose participants to genuine danger, which limits the level and realism of anxiety that can be created.
AQA examiner commentary has highlighted effective use of the Yerkes-Dodson law, Johnson and Scott, Yuille and Cutshall, contradictory findings and the surprise explanation. It also warned that some answers lost focus by describing other eyewitness factors instead of anxiety.
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Saying anxiety always reduces accuracy
Why this is incorrect:
Real-life evidence suggests that anxious witnesses can provide highly accurate accounts.
How to improve:
Explain that the effect depends on the level of anxiety, type of information and research situation.
Mistake: Saying anxiety always improves accuracy
Why this is incorrect:
Weapon-focus research suggests that high anxiety can reduce facial identification and peripheral recall.
How to improve:
Present evidence supporting both positive and negative effects.
Mistake: Describing weapon focus as forgetting the weapon
Why this is incorrect:
The witness focuses on the weapon and may remember it well. Other details receive less attention.
How to improve:
Explain that memory for the offender or surroundings may be reduced.
Mistake: Saying Johnson and Scott measured memory for the knife
Why this is incorrect:
The important outcome was identification of the person carrying the object.
How to improve:
State that identification was poorer in the threatening weapon condition.
Mistake: Assuming the knife condition proves anxiety caused the result
Why this is incorrect:
The knife was also unusual and unexpected.
How to improve:
Discuss surprise as a possible confounding variable.
Mistake: Describing the inverted-U as a negative correlation
Why this is incorrect:
Accuracy first increases and then decreases as anxiety rises.
How to improve:
Explain the low, moderate and very high anxiety stages.
Mistake: Assuming optimal anxiety is the same for everyone
Why this is incorrect:
Individuals and tasks may differ in the level of arousal that supports performance.
How to improve:
Describe optimal arousal as variable rather than fixed.
Mistake: Treating all eyewitness details as equivalent
Why this is incorrect:
Anxiety may improve memory for central information while reducing peripheral recall.
How to improve:
Identify exactly what the witness is being asked to remember.
Mistake: Saying a field study proves cause and effect
Why this is incorrect:
Naturally occurring groups may differ in many uncontrolled ways.
How to improve:
Acknowledge the high ecological validity but lower control of real-life research.
Mistake: Giving a generic laboratory criticism
Why this is incorrect:
Saying a study is artificial does not explain its impact.
How to improve:
Explain that staged events may produce weaker anxiety and less personal involvement than genuine crimes.
Mistake: Treating physiological arousal as a perfect measure of anxiety
Why this is incorrect:
An increased heart rate may reflect surprise, anger, excitement or physical effort.
How to improve:
Distinguish arousal from the emotional experience of anxiety.
Mistake: Drifting into other EWT factors
Why this is incorrect:
A question on anxiety requires sustained focus on anxiety evidence and explanations.
How to improve:
Use leading questions or post-event discussion only as brief alternative explanations where relevant.
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Question 1
Which one of the following best describes weapon focus?
A. A witness remembers every detail because a weapon is present
B. Attention is drawn towards a weapon, reducing processing of other information
C. A witness copies another person’s description of a weapon
D. An interviewer introduces a weapon through a leading question
[1 mark]
reveal mark scheme and indicative content
Answer: B. Attention is drawn towards a weapon, reducing processing of other information
Question 2
Define tunnel theory in the context of eyewitness testimony.
[2 marks]
reveal mark scheme and indicative content
Mark scheme
AO1 = 2
2 marks:Â Clear definition referring to anxiety narrowing attention onto central information at the expense of peripheral information.
1 mark:Â Limited or partial definition.
Example answer
Tunnel theory suggests that high anxiety narrows a witness's attentional focus onto central or threatening details, reducing their ability to process and later recall peripheral information.
Question 3
Explain how anxiety may reduce the accuracy of eyewitness identification.
[3 marks]
reveal mark scheme and indicative content
Mark scheme
AO1 = 3
Award 1 mark each for:
High anxiety can narrow attentional focus.
Attention may become concentrated on the source of threat, such as a weapon.
Less attention is available for the offender's face or other details, reducing later identification accuracy.
Example answer
High anxiety may narrow a witness's attention onto the most threatening aspect of an event, such as a weapon. This leaves fewer attentional resources for processing the offender's face, so the witness may later be less accurate when identifying them.
Question 4
A witness sees an offender holding a gun. During a later identification procedure, the witness describes the gun accurately but cannot identify the offender.
Explain this finding using weapon focus.
[4 marks]
reveal mark scheme and indicative content
Mark scheme
AO2 = 4
Award 1 mark each for:
The gun is a threatening stimulus likely to attract attention.
The witness focuses attention on the gun.
This produces weapon focus/tunnelled attention.
Less attention is available for encoding the offender's face, explaining accurate weapon recall but poor identification.
Example answer
The gun is threatening and attracts the witness's attention. According to weapon focus, anxiety causes attention to narrow onto the weapon, so its features are processed particularly well. However, less attention is directed towards the offender's face, making later identification less accurate.
Question 5
Outline one study suggesting that anxiety reduces eyewitness accuracy.
[4 marks]
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Mark scheme
AO1 = 4
Award 1 mark for each relevant point, up to 4 marks.
Indicative content
For example, Johnson and Scott (1976):
Participants waited in a laboratory and overheard an interaction in another room.
In one condition, a man emerged carrying a pen.
In another, more threatening condition, a man emerged carrying a blood-covered knife.
Participants were later asked to identify the man.
Identification was better in the pen condition, with 49%Â identifying him correctly, than in the knife condition.
The findings were interpreted in terms of weapon focus/tunnel theory.
AQA specifically cites Johnson and Scott's knife/pen study as evidence supporting weapon focus and tunnel theory. Â AQA materials report that 49% correctly identified the person in the pen condition, compared with fewer in the knife condition.
Example answer
Johnson and Scott had participants witness a man carrying either a pen or a blood-covered knife. Participants were later asked to identify the man. Identification was more accurate in the pen condition, where 49% identified him correctly, than in the knife condition. This suggests that anxiety caused by the weapon reduced eyewitness identification accuracy.
Question 6
Outline one study suggesting that anxiety can improve eyewitness accuracy.
[4 marks]
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Mark scheme
AO1 = 4
Award 1 mark for each relevant point, up to 4 marks.
Indicative content
For example, Yuille and Cutshall (1986):
Investigated witnesses to a real-life shooting.
Witnesses experienced differing levels of distress/anxiety during the event.
Their eyewitness accounts were examined several months later.
Witnesses who had experienced the greatest distress gave the most accurate accounts five months later.
This suggests that anxiety can sometimes enhance rather than impair eyewitness memory.
AQA specifically credits Yuille and Cutshall's finding that the most distressed witnesses gave the most accurate accounts five months later.
Example answer
Yuille and Cutshall investigated eyewitnesses to a real shooting. They examined their recall several months after the event and found that witnesses who had experienced the highest levels of distress gave the most accurate accounts five months later. This suggests that anxiety can sometimes improve eyewitness accuracy.
Question 7
A psychologist predicts that eyewitness accuracy will be highest at a moderate level of anxiety.
Explain this prediction using the inverted-U relationship.
[4 marks]
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The Yerkes-Dodson law proposes an inverted-U relationship between arousal/anxiety and performance.
At low anxiety, eyewitness accuracy may be relatively poor.
As anxiety rises to a moderate or optimal level, performance improves.
Beyond this optimum, further anxiety causes performance and eyewitness accuracy to decline.
AQA explicitly accepts the inverted-U hypothesis and the concept of optimal arousal in explanations of anxiety and eyewitness testimony.
Example answer
The Yerkes-Dodson law predicts an inverted-U relationship between anxiety and performance. At very low anxiety, accuracy may be relatively poor. Increasing anxiety improves performance until an optimal moderate level is reached. Beyond this point, further increases in anxiety reduce eyewitness accuracy.
Question 8
A researcher showed participants one of three films depicting the same theft.
Condition | Mean anxiety rating | Mean number of details recalled correctly |
Low anxiety | 2.1 | 11.4 |
Moderate anxiety | 5.8 | 17.2 |
High anxiety | 9.0 | 9.6 |
Describe the pattern shown in the results. Use the Yerkes-Dodson law to explain the findings.
[6 marks]
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Mark scheme
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Award up to 3 marks for describing the pattern and 3 marks for explaining it.
Indicative content
Pattern
Correct recall increases from 11.4 details at low anxiety to 17.2 at moderate anxiety.
Recall is therefore highest at the moderate anxiety rating of 5.8.
Recall falls to its lowest level, 9.6 details, when anxiety is highest at 9.0.
Explanation
This forms an inverted-U pattern.
Moderate anxiety represents the optimum level of arousal for memory performance.
Very low or very high anxiety produces poorer performance, with excessive anxiety potentially narrowing attention and reducing processing.
Example answer
Recall follows an inverted-U pattern. Participants in the low-anxiety condition recalled 11.4 details, increasing to 17.2 at the moderate anxiety level. Recall then fell to 9.6 when anxiety was highest. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, performance improves as arousal increases until an optimum moderate level is reached. Beyond this optimum, excessive anxiety reduces performance, explaining the poorer recall in the high-anxiety condition.
Question 9
A student says:
“Johnson and Scott’s findings show that anxiety caused poorer identification because participants looked at the knife.”
Explain one problem with this conclusion.
[4 marks]
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Award credit for one clear, developed problem.
Indicative content
The findings do not necessarily show that anxiety itself caused poorer identification.
The knife was unusual or unexpected and may have attracted attention because of surprise, rather than because it generated anxiety.
Therefore, weapon novelty and anxiety provide competing explanations for the identification results.
Research such as Pickel supports this criticism, finding that unusual objects can attract attention regardless of whether they are threatening.
AQA specifically identifies surprise rather than anxiety as an alternative explanation for weapon-focus findings, referring to Pickel's research using items such as scissors, a handgun, a wallet and a chicken.
Example answer
One problem is that poorer identification may not have been caused by anxiety. The knife was an unusual and surprising object, so participants may have focused on it because it was unexpected rather than because they were frightened. Pickel's research supports this alternative explanation by showing that unusual objects can attract attention. Therefore, Johnson and Scott's findings do not establish that anxiety caused the poorer identification.
Question 10
Discuss research into the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
[16 marks]
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