improving eyewitness testimony: evaluation Flashcards
why is the CI being time consuming a limitation
Police may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes much more time than the standard police interview
e.g. it takes more time to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax
The impact of it being time-consuming is that police would be reluctant to use CI
The CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours (Kebbel and Waystaff 1996)
This means it is unlikely that the “proper” version of the CI is actually used, which may explain why police have not been that impressed by it
why is some elements being more valuable than others a strength for CI
Milne and Bull (2002) found that each individual element was equally valuable
Each techniques used singly produced more info than the standard police interview
However,Milne and Bull found that using a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any other conditions
This confirmed police officer’s suspicions that at least these elements should be used to improve police interviewing even if the full CI isn’t used
This in turn increases the credibility of the CI among those who use it (police officers)
what does it mean when we say there is support for the effectiveness of the CI
Research suggests the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI) may offer special benefits
e.g. a meta-analysis by Konneken et al (1999) combined data from 50 studies
The enhanced CI consistently provided more correct info than the standard interview used by police
This is a strength because studies such as this one indicate that there are real practical benefits to the police of using enhanced version of the CI
The research shows that it gives the police a greater chance of catching and charging criminals, which is beneficial to society
CI creates an increase in inaccurate information
The techniques of the CI aim to increase the amount of correct information remembered but the recall of INCORRECT information may have also increased
Kohnken et al (1999) found an 81% increase incorrect information but also a 61% increase in incorrect information (false positives) when the enhanced CI was compared to a standard information
HOWEVER
The CI is successful because it is designed to fit with our knowledge of how human memory works, so it is based on a solid foundation of valid research. So the CI should not be abandoned in favour of the standard police interview. First of all, the fact that the CI leads to an increase in the inaccurate recall is a good reason to find ways of improving the CI, not abandoning it. Also, the CI does produce more accurate recall as well, and in fact, this outweighs any increase in inaccurate information.
