HANDS UP - A STUDY OF WITNESSES EMOTIONAL-REACTIONS AND MEMORIES ASSOCIATED WITH BANK ROBBERIES

This article presents some empirical findings concerning memory for vi olent real-life events. Witnesses who had observed a bank robbery, eit her as a victim or a bystander, were interviewed and studied with resp ect to emotional reactions and memory for detailed information about t he robbery. The consistency of the witnesses' accounts was measured by a comparison of information gathered in the police reports and the re collection given in a research interview. Overall, the results showed relatively high accuracy rates after an extended time interval with re spect to specific details about the robbery (e.g. action, weapon, clot hing). For some details, however, the witnesses showed a rather low pe rformance (e.g. colour of eyes and hair, and details of the surroundin g circumstances). There was no significant relationship between rated degree of emotion and the number of details remembered. These findings contradict the negative relationship between stress and memory that m any experts on eyewitness testimony believe in (Kassin, Ellsworth, and Smith, 1989). Points of commonality in findings from real-life studie s and simulation studies are discussed.