The current study was designed to collect data on a number of topics of interest to eyewitness researchers: (1) the predicted curvilinear relationship between arousal and facial recognition, (2) the interaction between gender and arousal, (3) the influence of personality on facial recognition, (4) the relationship between accuracy of prior description and identification accuracy, (5) the confidence-accuracy relationship, and (6) the relationship between arousal and time estimation. / Subjects were exposed to a live target under low, moderate, or high arousal levels. Afterwards, memory was assessed on a number of cognitive tasks: reaction time, accuracy, and confidence on a photo lineup; facial recall; and estimation of height, weight, age and duration of exposure to the target. In addition, data were collected on a number of personality variables: trait anxiety, extraversion, neuroticism, locus of control, and self-monitoring. / The data revealed the first tentative empirical support for generalizing the Yerkes-Dodson Law to facial recognition. The data revealed a curvilinear effect of arousal on facial recognition performance for females. Accuracy was better in the moderate (70%) than in the low (55%) and high conditions (39%). The effect accounted for 6% of the variance in accuracy but was not statistically significant. / Several additional findings appeared: (1) There was some evidence that females tend to do worse than males in recognizing a male face, at least with a target-present lineup. (2) Reaction time on the photo lineup was negatively correlated with confidence and accuracy, but positively correlated with choosing a photo from the lineup. (3) Subjects significantly overestimated the time that they saw the target person by a factor of 2.8 to 1 regardless of level of arousal. (4) There was little support for any relationship between personality and facial recognition. (5) Confidence and accuracy were positively correlated (r = .22), whereas confidence and choosing a photo from the lineup were negatively correlated (r = -.26). (6) Facial recognition and recall were significantly correlated at high levels of arousal (r = .25). In addition, facial recognition and recall were significantly correlated for females (r = .28), but not males. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-07, Section: B, page: 2496. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75603 |
| Contributors | BOTHWELL, ROBERT KIRK., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 104 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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