Cognitive interviews Flashcards
Why are cognitive interviews used?
It was designed to assist police in interviewing witnesses.
What were traditional police interviews like?
- Standardised list of questions
- Badly phrased ad asked out of sequence
- Excessive and too long
- Police officers dominated the social interaction so the EW would sit passively in the interview and not engage.
What are the 4 stages of cognitive interviews?
R - Reinstate the context
O - Change the order
P - Change perspective
E - Report everything
What is reinstate the context?
Mentally recreate (both internal and external) the event being recalled. This may be through cues to aid the EW or asking them to draw a picture of the building, or what they could smell, this brings them back into the place of the scene where they witnessed the event.
What is change the order?
Witnesses recall the event in a reverse order or from the most memorable point which they can remember. (this is known as the recency effect). This may be from what happened last and working their way up to what happened way back to the beginning of the event. This works on the theory that the most recent thing is the most easily recalled.
What is change perspective?
Recall events from different perspectives. For example if there was a robbery, they would tell the story from the perspective of the shop keeper etc. (this prevents distortion and schemas).
What is report everything?
Recall everything about the event, including trivial and fragmented details (this removes demand characteristics and response bias). The interviewer also promotes the interviewee to speak freely which may encourage them to say something that they don’t think is necessary but could be vital information needed.
Supporting research
Geiselman et al - used information from Loftus and palmers study and research into the role cues play in facilitating memory recall. He found that cog interviews permitted witnesses to recall more detail and with more accuracy than any other interviewing technique.
Weakness
Its hard to measure effectiveness - Cog interviews are composed of several components and different police forces use different techniques therefore its hard to measure the actual success of the interviewing technique as each trained police officer will use a different section of cog interviews.
Strength - research
Milne and Bull - Found that report everything and context reinstatement appeared to be key techniques used in gaining accurate, detailed recall showing the success of such techniques.
Weakness - research
Geiselman and fisher - found that cog interviews only work and are effective within a short time frame following a crime rather than a long time frame. This could limit the effectiveness as it may take a while to find witnesses or get them to consent to doing an interview.
