Cognitive Interview Flashcards
What is cognitive interview?
s a police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context using four structured stages. This increases the accessibility of stored information.
How does context reinstatement work?
• The interviewee needs to be returned, in their mind, to the situation (the context) in which the event occurred.
• The interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate the environment (including the weather, the lighting, distinctive smells, any people nearby), and how they were feeling, by asking the interviewee to think back to before, during and after the event.
Why does CR work?
• It is believed if there is mental consistency between the actual incident and the recreated situation, there is an increased likeliness that witnesses will recall more details, and be more accurate in their recall. Appropriate contextual and emotional cues help them retrieve the memories (linked to context and state dependent forgetting)
How does report everything work?
• Report every detail about the event that you can recall even if it seems trivial or irrelevant. Do not edit anything out.
• Information about the event should be reported on, even if it does not seem to have a bearing on the crime.
Why does RE work?
• Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories. It is the interviewer’s responsibility to decide what is important.
How does recall from changed perspective work?
• You are asked to mentally recreate the situation from other people’s perspectives for example; describe the incident from the viewpoint of other witnesses who were present at the time.
Why does CP work?
• This disrupts the effect that schemas have on our recall. Mental shortcuts as to what should happen in a particular situation, and instead make the witness think about what did happen.
How does recall in reverse order work?
• The interviewer encourages the interviewee to describe the event in reverse order, or to start with an aspect of the scene which seems most memorable and work backwards from that point.
Why does RO work?
• This again prevents the use of schemas. It also prevents dishonesty as it is much harder for people to provide an untruthful account if they have to reverse it.
What is research support for cognitive interview?
Geiselman et al (1985) showed participants police training videos of simulated violent crimes. 48 hours later they were interviewed about the films by an experienced Los Angeles police officer using cognitive interview, a standard police interview, or an interview using hypnosis. Geiselman et al. found that the cognitive interview elicited the most accurate recall, followed by hypnosis and then the standard interview. This is a strength because it clearly shows how CI can be used to enhance recall and demonstrates that it is more effective than other techniques including the standard interview.
Why is the CI not always appropriate ?
Police may be reluctant to use CI because it takes more time (therefore greater cost) than the standard police interview. For example, more time is needed to establish rapport with a witness and allow them to relax. The CI also requires special training and many police forces do not have the resources to provide more than few hours of training. Realistically many police forces may not carry out a complete CI, although it appears to be the best method to use to gain accurate EWT, consequently alternative less effective methods are employed. This demonstrates how the practical application of psychology can sometimes be restricted by the economy.
Why is a combination of techniques valuable?
, there is evidence to support the value of the elements of the cognitive interview. Milne and Bull (2002) found that all four techniques used singularly produced more information from witnesses than the standard police interview. Additionally, they found that a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any of the other conditions. Whilst some researchers argue that these findings limit the value of the reverse order and change perspective components, it suggests that at least these two elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eye-witnesses, even if the full CI is not used. This could help to shorten the process and increase the positive real-life applications to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses.
What is a criticism of CI?
that research has found that the Cognitive interview can actually create an increase in inaccurate information. The techniques of the CI aim to increase the amount of correct information, but the recall of incorrect information may also be increased. Evidence for this comes from Kohnken et al (1999) who found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase of incorrect information when compared to a standard police interview. This is a problem because cognitive interviews may sacrifice the quality of eyewitness testimony in favour of quantity of information. This means that police need to treat all information collected from cognitive interviews with caution.
