Improving EWT: The Cognitive Interview Flashcards
Explain ‘Report Everything’ process of the CI and why does it help?
Witness is asks to recall everything without interruption- witness may give themselves cues which help them remember other parts of the event
Explain ‘Reinstate the Context’ process of the CI and why does it help?
Witnesses return to the crime scene mentally and try to imagine the scene of the crime- helps trigger context-dependant memories
Explain ‘Reverse the Order’ process of the CI and why does it help?
Events are recalled in a different chronological order- reduces chance of schemas filling in gaps of witnesses memory and improves accuracy
Explain ‘Change Perspective’ process of the CI and why does it help?
Witnesses try to recall the incident from another persons perspective - stops expectations and schemas affecting recall
A limitation of The Cognitive Interview…
p- limitation is it is time consuming and impractical
e- Kabbell and Wagstaff found police officers did not use the CI in less serious crimes as they did not have the time.
e- CI may produce a lot of information but is not practical in allocating police to efficiently investigate incidents.
l- reduces the effectiveness of the CI in improving EWT
A strength of The Cognitive Interview…
p- Useful when interviewing older witnesses
e- Wright and Holiday found that the older the witness the more trouble they had in recalling detailed events- but when CI was used recalled much more information without falseness.
E- Evidence that the CI does help recall for certain witnesses
L- reduces age bias and therefore increases population validity of the method
A strength of The Cognitive Interview…
P- a strength is it reduces leading questions
e- in regular police interviews, leading questions are common steering witnesses to unintentionally give false information. ‘Report Everything’ section prevents this from happening.
E- means recall of witnesses is much more likely to be truthful
L- increases usefulness as a method
