The accuracy-confidence relationship in an eyewitness task: anxiety as a modifier

Abstract

SUMMARY The present study investigated the role of anxiety as a moderator of the relationship between accuracy and confidence in an eyewitness recall task. Participants selected as high or low anxious on a test anxiety scale viewed a video clip of a crime. One week later they answered verbally a series of questions about the video, rating their confidence in each answer. Observers were shown a video-recording of each participant’s test session and rated how confident they appeared overall. It was argued that people high in test anxiety would appraise their performance to a greater degree than low-anxious people, resulting in a significant correlation between accuracy and subjective confidence for high-anxious but not for lowanxious participants. The results obtained supported this hypothesis, and found similar relationships between accuracy and perceived confidence. Highly anxious participants expressed less overall confidence in their answers than low anxious participants. & 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.