Cognitive interview

Question 1

Outline step 1 ( report everything)

Answer 1

Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event even if unimportant as they may act as cue to trigger important memories and trivial details that could also be important.
Just talking about memory can jog their memory.

Question 2

Outline step 2 ( reinstate context)

Answer 2

Witnesses should return to the crime scene in their minds, imagine the environment ( weather) and emotions relating to context dependent forgetting. Can also be in vitro - in person.

Question 3

Outline step 3 ( Reverse the order)

Answer 3

Events should be recalled in a different order than the original sequence. Such as end to start or middle to start. This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of what happened than the actual event. It also prevents dishonesty- its hard to be dishonest if you have to reverse it.

Question 4

Outline Change perspective (step 4)

Answer 4

Witnesses should recall from other people’s perspectives, for example how it would have appeared to the victim. This disrupts the effect of expectations on your schema. Schemas for setting generate expectations of what would happen, so your schema is recalled instead of the actual event.

Question 5

Outline the Enhanced cognitive interview

Answer 5

Fisher developed additional items to the CI, to focus on the social dynamics of the interview - interview should be able to change how much eye contact they use and when. Should minimise distractions, reduce anxiety, and asking open ended questions. +remind witness they can say no. + Getting witness to speak slowly.

Question 6

What is a strength of the CI? ( Meta analysis)

Answer 6

Kokhen conducted a meta-analysis of 55 studies comparing CI to normal police interrogations and discovered that on average the cognitive interview gave a 41 percent increase accurate information. Only four studies showed no difference.

Question 7

What is a limitation of kokhen’s research?

Answer 7

Kokhen also found that CI can increase the amount of innacurate information recalled by the participants. This is severe for the ECI where participants produced more incorrect details. It sacrifices the quality of information for quality. Konkhen found an increase in 82 percent of correct information and a 61 percent increase in incorrect info. This suggests while the cognitive interview is beneficial, we must be mindful that some information gathered may be false.

Question 8

What is a weakness of the cognitive interview ( Milne and Bull)

Answer 8

One limitation of the cognitive interview is that not all of its components are equally useful. They found that each of the individual techniques provided more than standard police interviews. However,