improving accuracy of EWT: cognitive interview

Question 1

what is a cognitive interview (CI)?

Answer 1

method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories

Question 2

what did fisher and geiselman (1992) argue?

Answer 2

• EWT could be improved if police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses
• recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works, collecitvely called the CI

Question 3

what are the 4 main techniques in CI?

Answer 3

1. report everything
2. reinstate the context
3. reverse the order
4. change perspective

Question 4

CI: report everything

Answer 4

• witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may see irrelevant or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it
• seemingly trivial detils may be important and may trigger other important memories

Question 5

CI: reinstate the context

Answer 5

• witnesses should return to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment (eg. weather, what they could see) and their emotions (eg. happy, bored)
• this is related to context-dependent forgetting

Question 6

CI: reverse the order

Answer 6

• event should be recalled in a different order from the original sequence eg. back to front
• this is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the events must have happened, rather than reporting the actual evets
• it also prevents dishonesty as it is harder to produce an untruthful account if you have to reverse it

Question 7

CI: change perspective

Answer 7

• witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives (eg. other witnesses, perpetrator)
• this is done to disrupt effect of epectation and also the effect of schema on recall
• the schema you have of a particular setting generates expectations of what would have happened, so it is the schema recalled rather than what actually happenend

Question 8

enhanced cognitive interview (fisher et al. 1987)

Answer 8

• developed some additional elements of CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction
• eg. interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it

Question 9

what ideas does ECI include that CI doesn’t?

Answer 9

• reducing eyewitness anxiety
• minimising distractions
• getting witness to speak slowly
• open-ended questions
• interviewer takes time to establish rapport with witness to encourage them to recall more info about what they have seen

Question 10

evaluation: support for effectiveness of CI

Answer 10

• meta-analysis by kohnken et al. (1999) combined data from 55 studies comparing E/CI with standard police interviewing
• CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared to standard interview
• only 4 studies in the analysis showed no difference between the different types of interview
• this shows that CI is an effective technique in helping witnesses to recall information that is stored in memory but not immediately accessible

Question 11

evaluation: evidence to show that CI is not useful

Answer 11

• kohnken et al. (1999) found an icrease in the amout of inaccurate information recalled by participants
• this was as a particular issue in the ECI, which produced more incorrect details than the CI
• CIs many sacrifice quality of EWT (ie. accuracy) in favour of quantity (amount of details)
• therefore, police officers should treat EW evidence from E/CIs with caution

Question 12

evaluation: not all elements of CI are equally effective or useful

Answer 12

• milne and bull (2002) found that each of the 4 techniques used alone produced more info than the standard police interview
• they also found that a combination of ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them
• this casts some doubt on the credibility of the overall CI

Question 13

evaluation: CI is time-consuming

Answer 13

• police officers may be reluctant to use CI because it takes more time and training than the standard police interview
• eg. more time is needed to establish rapport with witness and allow them to relax
• CI also requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours (kebbell and wagstaff 1997)
• this suggests that the complete CI as it exists is not a realistic method for police officers to use and it might be better to focus on just a few elements

Question 14

evaluation: variations of the CI

Answer 14

• police forces have taken a ‘pick and mix’ approach to the various techniques in the CI
• this means it is hard to compare the effectiveness of different approaches in research studies
• however, this ‘pick and mix’ approach is more flexible
• this means individuals can develop their own approach according to what works best for them