The cognitive interview - memory

Question 1

what are the four aspects of the cognitive interview?

Answer 1

• Cognitive reinstatement = trying to mentally recreate an image of the situation, including details of the environment and the individuals emotional state
• recall from a different perspective = e.g. what another witness present at the scene would have seen
• recall in reverse order = e.g. from the end to the beginning
• report everything = witness is encourage to report all details about the event, even though these details may seem unimportant

Question 2

what is the enhanced cognitive interview

Answer 2

• has additional features of;

encouraging the witness to relax and speak slowly

offer comments to help clarify witness statements

adapt questions to suit the understanding of individual witness

Question 3

what is one limitation of the cognitive interview ?

Answer 3

• it is time consuming to conduct and takes much longer than a standard police interview
• it is also time consuming to train officers to use this method.
• This means that it is unlikely that the proper version of the cognitive interview is actually used

Question 4

what is another limitation of the cognitive interview ?

Answer 4

• some elects of the cognitive interview may be more valuable than others
• e.g. research has shown that using a combination of ‘report everything’ with ‘context reinstatement’ produces better recall than any of the other conditions individually

Question 5

What is Geiselman’s evaluation point to support the cognitive interview ?

Answer 5

• set out to investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview
• participants viewed a film of a violent crime and after 48 hours were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods; the cognitive interview, a standard interview or a interview using hypnosis
• the number of facts accurately recalled and the number of errors made were recalled
• the average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 42.1
• for hypnosis interview = 38
• for standard interview = 29.4
• shows that the cognitive interview is more effective than other methods

Question 6

explain how Fisher supports the cognitive interview

Answer 6

• found that witnesses reported greater details in their accounts of crimes when American detectives had been trained to use the technique

Question 7

explain how Kohnken doesn’t support the cognitive interview

Answer 7

• found that witnesses recalled more a
  incorrect infirmaries when interviewed with the cognitive interviews compared with the standard interview techniques
• perhaps because more detailed recalled increases the chance of making mistakes