Improving Accuracy Of Eye Witness Testimony - The Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What are the main techniques in the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 1

1. Report everything - encouraged to include every single detail of event, even tho it may seem irrelevant or witness doesn’t feel confident about it - seemingly trivial details may be important & may trigger other important memories
2. Reinstate context
   Witness should return to original crime scene ‘in their mind’ & imagine environment (what weather was like) & emotions (feelings) - related to context-dependent forgetting
3. Reverse order
   Events should be recalled in different chronological order to original sequence
   This prevents people reporting expectations of how events must have happened rather than actual events - also prevents dishonesty
4. Change perspective
   Witnesses should recall incident from other’s perspectives, e.g. how it would’ve appeared to other witnesses/perpetrator - this disrupts effect of expectations & schema on recall
   Schema you have for particular setting (going into shop) generates expectations of what would’ve happened & schema recalled not what happened

Question 2

Evaluate the cognitive interview

Answer 2

Limitation - time consuming
E.g. police may be reluctant to use as it takes more time as it needs to establish rapport with witness & allow them to relax. CI also requires special training & many forces only able to provide few hours
Explain - unlikely ‘proper’ version of CI actually used, which may explain why police not impressed

Strength - some elements more valuable than others
E.g. Milne & Bull (2002) found each individual element was equally valuable - each technique used singly produced more info than standard police interview, however using report everything & context reinstatement techniques together was most successful
Explain - suggests at least these 2 elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even if full CI isn’t used, thus, increases credibility of CI amongst those who use it

Strength - support for effectiveness of CI - research suggests enhanced cognitive interview may offer special benefits
E.g. - meta-analysis by Köhnen et al. (1999) combined data from 50 studies - ECI consistently provided more correct info than standard interview used by police
Explain - studies like this indicate real practical benefits to police of using ECI - research shows it gives police greater chance of catching & charging criminals, helping society as whole