Fisher & Geiselman 1989 - Interviewing witnesses - cognitive interview

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

To study and test the cognitive interview in the field.

Question 2

Design

Answer 2

field experiment with actual interviews of real witnesses by serving police detectives.

Question 3

Participants

Answer 3

16 detectives from the robbery division of florida, all had at least 5 years experience.

Question 4

Procedure

Answer 4

detectives asked to record their standard interviewing technique over the next few months. this took 4 months and 88 interviews were recorded.

then half were trained in cognitive interview techniques.

training was 4 60min sessions , 7 detectives completed the program and were used in the results which follow.

over the next 7 months more interviews were recorded from the two groups and analysed by a team at the university of california who were blind to the conditions.

Question 5

Results

Answer 5

• The trained detectives elicited 47% more info after training
• trained detectives gained 63% more info than untrained detectives
• no difference in accuracy

Question 6

Conclusions

Answer 6

Strong support for the effectiveness of the cognitive interview in the field, more info with same accuracy.

cognitive interview techniques have since been applied to other clinical settings such as in therapy sessions