Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What is context reinstatement?

Answer 1

• The interviewer encourages interviewee to mentally recreate the environment (weather, smells, people nearby etc) and how they were feeling by asking interviewee to think back to before during and after the event

Question 2

Why does context reinstatement work?

Answer 2

• Mental consistency between incident and mental recreation leads to witness recalling more details
• Also helps with accuracy as mental recreation will trigger details of the actual event

Question 3

What is report everything?

Answer 3

• Report every detail about event that you can recall, even if it seems trivial
• Info about the event should be reported on even if it seemingly has no bearing on the crime

Question 4

Why does report everything work?

Answer 4

• Unrestrained recall may reveal details which were subconsciously ‘edited out’ without realising - interviewer gets all relevant info and can then make a judgement about it’s importance
• May uncover info which acts as a cue for further info

Question 5

What is recall from changed perspective?

Answer 5

• You are asked to mentally recreate the situation from a different perspective e.g. describing the incident from the viewpoint of other people who were present at the time

Question 6

Why does recall from changed perspective work?

Answer 6

• You are less likely to rely on usual schemas to remember and describe the event as compelled to use the perspective of others. This leads to more accurate recall

Question 7

What is recall in reverse order?

Answer 7

• Interviewer encourages interviewee to describe the event in reverse order from the last thing that occurred regarding the crime or starting with an aspect of the scene that seems most memorable and work backwards

Question 8

Why does recall in reverse order work?

Answer 8

• Less likely to rely on usual schemas as you are compelled to recall the crime in a different order. This leads to more accurate recall
• Also can verify account from the original testimony when the event was described chronologically without the reverse order

Question 9

How do Milne and Bull support CI?

Answer 9

• One strength of CI is that there is evidence showing it improves accuracy of EWT
• Milne and Bull found that each technique used individually produced more info than the standard police interview
• Moreover, they found that a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any other condition
• This is a strength because it shows that CI is in fact an effective technique in gathering EWT
• Thus CI is a valuable tool

Question 10

How do Geiselman et al support CI?

Answer 10

• Another strength is that it’s been proven to be an effective method compared to others
• Geiselman et al showed PPs police training videos of stimulated violent crime. 48 hours later they were interviewed about the films by an experienced Los Angeles police officer using CI, SI, or hypnosis
• They found that the CI elicited the most accurate recall followed by hypnosis then SI
• This is a strength because it shows that CI is an effective technique in gathering EWT especially when compared to other techniques
• Thus CI is an effective tool

Question 11

How is time and resources a weakness?

Answer 11

• A weakness of CI is that it is very time consuming and requires significant resources
• Since CI requires interviewers to use a range of diff techniques to gather info it requires more time than SI
• This is a weakness because it’s unlikely to be suitable for situations where a large number of witnesses need to be interviewed quickly
• Moreover, CI requires investment of money and resources to provide special training. Many police forces face financial restrictions and so aren’t able to provide this training
• Thus due torequirements of time and resources, CI can’t be implemented in all situations and decreases in utility

Question 12

How does Konhken et al weaken CI?

Answer 12

• A weakness is that it also encourages recall of inaccurate info
• Kohnken et al carried out a meta-analysis of 55 studies into CI and found an 81% increase of correct info but also a 61% increase of INCORRECT info when compared to SI
• This is a problem because CI does encourage witnesses to recall more info but we can’t be sure that info is correct
• In fact it is highly likely (61%) that this info is wrong
• Therefore CI needs to be used cautiously in real life as info can’t be assumed to be valid
• This decreases the validity of CI