Cognitive Interview

Question 1

Cognitive Interview: (CI)

Answer 1

A method of interviewing EWs to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main technique, all based on well-established psychological knowledge of human memory- report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order and change perspective.

Question 2

Who came up with CI?

Answer 2

Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman (1992)

Question 3

1. Report Everything

Answer 3

1. Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it.
2. Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories.

Question 4

2. Reinstate the context

Answer 4

1. The witness should return to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment and their emotions.
2. This is related to context-dependent forgetting.

Question 5

3. Reverse the Order

Answer 5

1. Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, for example, from the final point back to the beginning or from the middle to the beginning.
2. Done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than actual events. It prevents dishonesty.

Question 6

4. Change perspective

Answer 6

1. Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspective. For example, how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator.
2. This is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall.
3. The schema you have for a particular setting generate expectations of what happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened.

Question 7

Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI):

Answer 7

1. Fisher et al. (1987) developed some additional elements to the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction.
2. For example, the interview needs to known when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it.
3. The ECI also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions.

Question 8

E: CI is Time-Consuming

Answer 8

1. Police may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes much more time than the standard police interview.
2. You need more time to establish rapport with hem and allow them to relax.
3. The CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours (Kebbell and Wagstaff 1996).
4. Unlikely that the ‘proper’ version of the CI is actually used, which may explain by police are unimpressed by it.

Question 9

E: Some elements may be more valuable than others

Answer 9

1. Milne and Bull (2002) found that each individual elements was equally valuable. Each technique used singly produced more information than the standard police interview.
2. Found that Milne and Bull found that using a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any of the other conditions.
3. This confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others.
4. A strength because it suggests at least 2 elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even if the full CI isn’t used.
5. Increases credibility of CI.

Question 10

E: Support for the Effectiveness of the ECI

Answer 10

1. Research suggests that the ECI may offer special benefits.
2. Meta-analysis by Kohnken et al. (1999) combined data from 50 studies. The ECI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview.
3. Real practical benefits to the police of using the ECI and gives the police a greater chance of catching and charging criminals.

Question 11

E: Variations of CI used

Answer 11

Studies of the effectiveness of the CI inevitably use slightly different CI techniques or use the enhanced CI. The same is true in real life- police forces evolve their own methods.

Question 12

E: CI increases inaccurate information

Answer 12

1. The techniques of the CI aim to increase the amount of correct information remembered but the recall of incorrect information may also be increased.
2. Kohnken et al.(1999) found an increase 81% of correct information but also an increase of 61% false information compared the standard interview.