Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What did fisher et al. study and find

Answer 1

They studies real police interviews for 4 months and found that questions were brief, direct, fact based, and closed. They found that witnesses were not allowed to expand upon their answer and that they would often get interrupted. This was called standard interview. Fisher et al argued that this type way of interviewing contributes to the failure for eyewitnesses to accurately recall the event.

Question 2

What did geiselman develop and why?

Answer 2

Geiselman developed the cognitive interview in order to improve the police interview techniques and to acquire more information and detail from the eye witness

Question 3

What are the 4 stages of cognitive interview?

Answer 3

1) Context Reinstatement: where witness tries to mentally recreate the image of the situation, including every detail of the situation such as the environment, the weather and their emotions and feelings felt. These may act as retrieval cues (context cues) to improve and facilitate recall
2) Report Everything = Interviewer encourages the witness to recall everything from the event, no matter how unimportant or trivial. This may highlight details that could’ve been overlooked and trigger other memories
3) Recall from changed perspective: The witness tries to mentally recreate the situation from another perspective, that be a birdseye view, or from the perpetrators perspective for example. This promotes a more holistic view of the event which may enhance recall and reduce the influence of schemas
4) Recall in reverse order: the witness is asked to recall the scene in a different order for example from end to the beginning. This should verify the accuracy of the witnesses account and reduce the possibility that recall of the events may be influenced by schemas

Question 4

What is the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 4

This is where fisher added additional guidelines for police interviews:

• encourage the witness to relax and speak slowly, to reduce anxiety and enhance recall
• Distractions should be avoided
• use open ended questions
• offer comments to help clarify witness statement which may improve detail of the statement

Question 5

What is the evaluation of Cog Interview?

Answer 5

+ Geiselman et al showed participants a video of a simulated cry and asked them to recall the crime by using standard interview, cognitive interview or hypnosis. Cog interview led to the most information being recalled by the eyewitnesses
+ fisher et al trained real police officers in Miami to use the enhanced cog interview to interview eyewitnesses. There was an average of 46% increase in information and 90% of that information was verified as accurate
- Koehnken et al found that witness recalled more incorrect info when interviewed interviews with the cognitive interview as compared to the standard interview. This could be because more detailed recall increase the chances of mistake
- Cog interview is time consuming to implement and the police do not have the time, training or resources to do it.
- Memon et al reported that police officers believed that recall from changed perspective misleads witnesses into speculation rather than reporting what they actually saw. Because of this, the police are reluctant to use it.