Cognative interviews Flashcards
Cognative interviews
overall points and weaknesses
• introduction (establishes a relationship with the witness which increases trust and comfort and the efficiency of memory and communication which invites the interviewee to tell the police officer more)
• open ended questions and probing for specific and full details
• a review which consists of finding out if anything has been missed and if there are any further details it’s also consists of checking for inconsistencies and contradictions within the data that has been given and addressing them to find out the truth
• when closing the interview the interviewee must ask if there is any more information that they remember they must contact them
• free recall is incredibly important which consists of no interruptions from the interviewer when the interviewee is speaking therefore the interviewee must do most of the talking from their own words and their own memory
• picture of a scene in their minds which is called cognitive reinstatement
• possible floors include some are too literal when told to tell the interviewer everything which results in them giving pointless information such as their opinion on peas and it also takes longer for the interview to finish which means that the perpetrator isn’t found an Arrested giving the more chance to cause more harm to society
• bias Recall based on people’s morals and norms and schema this can affect the way in which they present these situation and may influence their story overall by changing it and confabulating it
Cognative interviews
Stage 1
Reinstate the context
cues
Reinstating the context involves encouraging Witnesses to recall how they felt and the atmosphere of the day including the weather the smells the time of day what they could hear
This helps put the person back in time to the Instance and they improve their accuracy
This essentially acts as a cue
Episodic memories are context dependent and therefore when the Witnesses asked to imagine all aspects of the Crime Scene,
such as what the weather was like or how they were feeling,
it is hope that these acts as retrieval Cues which will improve memory recall of the event
For example
Asking the interviewee to draw out a plan of the room
then they will be asked where they were in the room where the victim was in the room and where the perpetrator was in the room
and then also asked things such as what they could: see, smell or hear about what was going on
Cognative interviews
Stage 2
Report everything
yee schema and omission (leave out info when not fit in schema may lead to confabulation or simplification)
Encourage them to report every detail no matter how small or seemingly trivial it can be
this can increase witness accuracy
Bartlett suggests that people often leave information out when recalling events he called this omission
this is especially likely when this information does not fit the persons schema
(a cognitive framework which helps us understand the world around us)
The four vs information that’s left out due to emission may Eva leave the memory shortened and simplified or it will be replaced with information from vishkema confabulating the memory making it false
For example asking the interviewees recall the whole event
all of it
leave no detail out
no matter how irrelevant it may seem
trivial or not
Cognative interviews
stage 3
Reverse order
To stop the reconstruction of their memory being based on schema
Recalling the events in reverse order, or from the middle and working backwards and forwards in time, makes it harder for the witness to reconstruct a story that makes sense, and improve eyewitness accuracy.
When recalling in Forward order, Witnesses reconstruct their memories based on their schema
leading to confabulation
recalling in reverse order prevents this and thus their recall is more accurate to.
This prevents them from recalling the story that makes sense to them (false memory thats been confabulated)
For example asking the interviewee to recall from when the criminal fled the scene to when they had arrived in the scene which could be for example a pub
Therefore they would recall the events in reverse order from when the criminal committed the crime to when they’d first arrived at the scene
Cognative interviews
stage 4
Change perspective
Somebody else’s point of view so not personal schema involved in the reconstruction of memories during recall
Trying to adopt the viewpoint of a different witness, eg a prominent character in the instant or another witness
This may encourage recall from a different recall route this again may reduce the influence of schema
This is due to recording the event from somebody else’s points of View which means that your personal schema may not affect the reconstruction of their memory
For example: what do you think the bar tender saw?
Cognative interviews
Problemos
litteraly
bias recall
confusion
• some may take the spare no detail stage literally and talk about irrelevant details for example what you ate for lunch
this could go on for hours, therefore this means that it will take longer so they’ll be no closer to an arrest of the perpetrator
• sometimes they may take more than 6 hours and the longer it takes the more they contradict themselves
and the more they contradict themselves the more they believe in those contradictions which eventually leads to just confabulation of memory into a false memory
• there is sometimes buyers Recall based on morals or norms or schema so that the recall makes sense this may also the recall to make it seem better or worse than it actually was
• they may recall it as if the victim is the perpetrator due to they will upbringing and therefore the perpetrator would be the victim as they acted in defence or protection
• or they could overemphasize the detail of what the perpetrator did which could affect the severity of their punishment
• Cues could be ineffective add aiding recall
and might even hinder it if they use the wrong Cues
which could lead to post event information and source monitoring errors which could lead to false memories being believed and recalled leading to false conviction
• recalling the event in the wrong order or from another point of view may lead to confusion and inaccuracy
The enhanced cognitive interview
( Fisher et al 1987)
The enhanced version of the cognitive interview contains the same four rules as the original
• it however include More Social aspects to the interview setting and procedure which increases recall from the original version
• it’s also includes several general principles for improving communication
• including minimizing distractions, allowing pauses between responses and the next question, as well as Tailoring the language used to suit the eyewitness so up understanding
• this allows for the interviewer to provide an environment that allows to increase context reinstatement from the participant
This version of the cognitive interview was introduced by Fisher in 1987
Cognative interviews
Geiselman et al 1985 +
accuracy
LA SI 29.4 CI (41.2) Hipnosis 38
51 participants you’d have film of a violent crime
Interviewed by policeman using one of three methods either a commented interview a standard interviews by the Los Angeles Police or an interview using hypnosis
The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview with significantly higher (41.2)
than the standard interview (29.4) and for hypnosis it was 38.0
There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition
therefore shows that the cognitive interview is more accurate at recalling correct facts than the standard interview or hypnosis making it better for gathering information from a eyewitness or victim of a crime
Cognative interviews
Geiselman et al 1985
— low eco and ethno
The study was a lab study and ppts watched a film of a violent crime
this reduces ecological validity as watching the video doesn’t have the same emotional involvement as a real crime
and therefore memory may not have been formed as clearly due to the lack of emotion and
therefore the recalled facts may be less than in real life making the data innacurate to real life
and therefore we can’t be certain that in real life cognitive interviews would as the results suggest would have more recalled facts than standard interviews and hypnosis
Therefore giving it low ecological validity
The study maybe ethnocentric as all 51 participants were from the United States of America and therefore some aspect of the cognitive interview may have been less or more effective than it would have been in other cultures
for example changes of perspective could be incredibly more effective in for example collectivist cultures where the group is placed above the individual therefore giving better recall there
Showing that the cognitive interview may have different effects on people of different backgrounds and cultures
meaning these results that cognitive interviews had higher accuracy than standard interviews may not be applicable to different cultures
and therefore making the study ethnocentric
Cognative interviews
Geiselman 1999
8 yr olds gen —
Recommended that the cognitive interview should be used Witnesses from aged 8 years and upwards
This is due to them finding the younger children did not benefit from such a technique and even record memories was slightly less accurate and other interview methods
This means that the cognitive interview has less people that it can be applied to such as children under eight years old
Reducing its effectiveness on everybody overall and its application to everybody
This therefore reduces the generalizability of cognitive interviews as it can’t be used effectively on people under the age of eight
Cognative interviews
Geiselman and Fisher 1997
v effectivness with time
time dependant
stress interviewee
—
They found that if the cognitive interview is used a long-term after the chroma taking place but it’s effectiveness is weakened
This could limit their usefulness if it takes too long to find The Witness or to do the interview
Is therefore decreases effectiveness over time as the more time between the crime and the interview the less effective the cognitive interview will be at aiding the recall of the event
It also therefore locks the studies effectiveness behind a timer as after a long time the technical become ineffective and therefore it is essential to use the technique as soon as possible making it time dependant
possibly causing more stress to the participants as they may be being rushed for an interview
Cognative interviews
Fisher et al 1989
Training the same detectives (up internal vald) in Florida (low gen) 47% more useful standard interview
up accuracy CI
They conducted a study of a real life cognitive interview performance
The researchers trained police detectives in Florida (Low gen, ethnocentric) in the use of the cognitive interview
They then compared their interview performance before and after training (repeated measures)
After training detectives gained as much as 47% more useful information from Witnesses to real crimes compared to when had been using standard interview techniques
This shows that they are 47% more useful in gaming information from Witnesses compared to standard interviews
Making cognitive interviews more accurate than standard interviews
This is especially true due to them using the same detectives making the comparison of before and after fairer than using detectives of possibly differing skill
this therefore reduces the extraneous variable of the differing skill level of detectives that could have made the study and unfair comparison making the results invalid allowing for cause and effect to be established accurately giving the study high internal validity
Cognative interviews
Hard to assess the effectiveness of cognitive interviews
hard to measure due to diff techniques hard to compare accuratly
and compare versions hard cuz p.d. use diff ones
not standardised
(-)
Issues in debates
Interviews as they are composed of several techniques
and different police forces have tended to use different versions of it making comparisons between them difficult
Some of these differing techniques may be more effective than others but due to them all being used together it may be hard to separate them and compare them
as to compare them a different participants would have to be used and they may have differing skill of memory and recall
Therefore making them difficult to compare and decipher their effectiveness
Different police departments use different versions so it’s harder to figure out which versions are better and more effective as the differences in these versions may be hard to separate and compare alone
This also means that the cognitive interview is not standardized among police departments further decreasing their comparableness?
Cognative interviews
Milne and Bull 2002
Context reinstatement and Report everything are the key components and most effective at recalling accurate and detailed information
+/- yay shortern it but still have used it b4 and after
They despite its difficulties to do
found that the report everything and context reinstatement components of the cognitive interview
appeared to be the key techniques in gaining accurate detailed recall
+
This means that 2/4 techniques were effective at gaining accurate in detailed recall therefore it could be shortened by removing the reverse order and changing perspective techniques
Is therefore would reduce the time between the interview and catching the perpetrator also reducing the time that they are a threat to the public
(-)
This also means that b4 this and possibly after the study
people will be using 2 ineffective techniques of changing the order and recalling from a different point of view
which increases the time taken which means there is a longer time without an arrest of the perpetrator meaning they pose a longer threat to the public
Therefore this study can be seen as both a strength in improving the efficiency of the qualitative interview but also a weakness that the cognitive interview has been using ineffective techniques and has been taking a long time to arrest perpetrators when they would have actually needed
Cognative interviews
time inneffective - innefficent
Issues in debates
Interviews can be time-consuming often requiring more time to do fully than police officers actually have this can result in taking too long to convict an offender increasing the risk to society
this may lead to harm to society from the perpendra it also means that cognitive interviews I’m not time efficient which is at the expense of the safety of the public
