M- Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What is the cognitive interview?

Answer 1

The cognitive interview is a police technique which encourages witnesses to create the original context using 4 structural stages.

Question 2

Who developed the cognitive interview?

Answer 2

The cognitive interview was originally developed by Fisher and Geiselman.

Question 3

What are the 4 principles of the cognitive interview?

Answer 3

1) Context reinstatement or mental reinstatement
2) Report everything
3) Recall in changed order
4) Recall from changed perspective

Question 4

What occurs during context reinstatement?

Answer 4

• Witness is encouraged to mentally recreate the environment and how they were feeling at the time of the event
• E.g “Try to remember the context of the event in question. Recall the scene, weather, how you were feeing.”
• There is mental consistency between the actual incident and the recreated situation
• Increased likeliness that the witness will recall more details

Question 5

What occurs during report everything?

Answer 5

• Report every detail about the event that you can recall even if it seems trivial and unimportant
• Information should be reported even if it does not seem to have a bearing on the crime
• This unrestrained recall may throw up details, which might otherwise be inadvertently mentally ‘edited out’
• It is the interviewers responsibility to decide what is important

Question 6

What occurs during recall from changed perspective?

Answer 6

• The witness is asked to mentally recreate the situation from a different perspective.
• Describing the event from another viewpoint
• Prevents the use of schemas

Question 7

What occurs during recall in reversed order?

Answer 7

• The witness is encouraged to describe the event in reverse order or to start with an aspect of the scene which seems most memorable and work backwards
• Prevents the use of schemas

Question 8

Give strengths of the cognitive interview.

Answer 8

) Cognitive interview improves recall

• There is research that suggests that techniques employed by the cognitive interview improve recall
• For example, Milne and Bull found in particular a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than the standard police interview.
• The cognitive interview appears to be an improvement from the standard police interview. This is demonstrated by report everything and context reinstatement producing better recall of events

2) Produces more accurate recall than standard police interview
- A strength of the cognitive interview is that it produces the most accurate recall in comparison to other interview methods
- For example, Geiselman et al. showed participants simulated violent crimes. 48 hours later witnesses were interviewed about the films, using cognitive interviews, a standard police interview, or an interview using hypnosis.
- The cognitive interview elicited the most accurate recall.
- This indicates the cognitive interview is the most accurate interview method and can be used to enhance recall of witnesses better than other interview techniques
- Therefore, this demonstrates that the cognitive interview is the most effective interview method, which potentially could be used with greater success in the real