Cognitive Interview Flashcards
What is cognitive interview?
A police technique used to interview witnesses of crime
What is the cognitive interview based on?
What psychologists have discovered about memory
What does the cognitive interview encourage witnesses to do?
Recreate the original context to increase the accessibility of stored information
Who devised the cognitive interview?
Fisher and Gieselman
How many components does the cognitive interview consist of?
Four
What are the 4 components of cognitive interview?
- REPORT EVERYTHING
- MENTAL REINSTATEMENT
- CHANGING THE ORDER
- CHANGING THE PERSPECTIVE
What does the ‘Report Everything’ component require the participant to do?
Reporting everything known about the event, including every single detail
What is the aim of the report everything component?
Increase consistency between actual event and recreated situation, so there is a higher chance the witness will recall more accurate details
What does MENTAL REINSTATEMENT OF ORIGINAL CONTEXT require the participant to do?
Mentally recreate the external environment from the original incident
What does CHANGING THE ORDER require the participant to do?
Reversing/changing the order in which the events occurred
What is the aim of changing the order?
To vary the route through memory to increase recall
What does CHANGING THE PERSPECTIVE require the participant to do?
Recall the incident from another perspective, eg. how it would appear to other witnesses
Did Kohkens research support the use of cognitive interview?
Yes
What did Kohnken research?
The effectiveness of CI
What did Kohknens study involve
A meta-analysis of 53 studies
What did Kohnken find?
a 34% increase in correct recall when using CI, compared with the standard interview
What did Milne and Bulls study into the effectiveness of the individual 4 components involve?
-Undergrad students and children were interviewed using just 1 component, and compared to a control condition
What did Milne and Bull find?
Report Everything and Mental Reinstatement components gave the best recall used together rather than just one component
-Using 1 component was no better than simply ‘try again’
What do the results of Milne and Bulls study show?
CI is a more effective way to access memories than existing interview methods
Which two studies investigated the effectiveness of CI?
Kohknen and Milne and Bull
Why is there difficulty in establishing the effectiveness of CI?
There are many different versions used by police forces, so it is difficult to establish the effectiveness
What are some time issues associated with CI?
It is more time consuming than standard interviews and the police generally prefer to use quicker methods that limit the amount of information collected
What is a real world application of CI?
- The existing interview technique in Brazil was torture and other ill treatment
- A study showed that CI increased the amount of correct and forensically rich information obtained in Brazil
what is enhanced CI and a problem assosciated with it?
- Further cognitive techniques designed to probe a witnesses mental image
- Places greater demand on interviewer
Why is CI more effective for older people?
It overcomes difficulties such as older generations becoming overly cautious due to negative stereotypes
