Improving Eyewitness Testimony: The Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What helped improve the accuracy of EWT?

Answer 1

The Cognitive Interview.

Question 2

Geiselman and Colleagues (1985)

Answer 2

• Identified a number of ways that standard police interview methodology could negatively affect EW’s recall accuracy of crimes.
• The interview focuses on utilising retrieval cues, which the standard police interview was restrictive in doing.
• Geiselman et al. therefore integrated effective memory recall techniques into a new questioning methodology, called the cognitive interview, to achieve more detailed and accurate EWT.

Question 3

What are the 4 main techniques used in the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 3

1) Report everything
2) Reinstate the context
3) Reverse the order
4) Change the perspective

Question 4

1) Report everything

Answer 4

• Witnesses were encouraged to discuss the details of an incident or event.
• Even small details as they could trigger important memories.

Question 5

2) Reinstate the context

Answer 5

• The witness should imagine being back at the scene of the event to imagine the environment.
• They would then be asked to describe small details like what was the weather like, what they could hear, etc = context dependent forgetting.

Question 6

3) Reverse the order

Answer 6

• Witnesses described events in a different chronological order.
• Eg, from end to beginning.
• Prevents dishonesty and stops people from describing what they think could have happened next and not what actually happened.

Question 7

4) Changing the perspective

Answer 7

• Witnesses urged to recall the event from another person’s perspective.
• Eg, what another witness may have seen or from the perspective of the perpetrator.
• Disrupts any expectations of what may have happened and reduces the effect of schemas on recall - leading questions.
• Schemas - packages of knowledge, eg, furniture = sofa, chair.

Question 8

Strength

Answer 8

Fisher et al. (1990) found that witnesses reported greater detail in their accounts of crimes when American detectives had been trained to use the technique.

Question 9

Strength

Answer 9

The technique is more structured than the standard technique, and it seems appropriate for crime-related interviews to be very thorough in order to gather the detail required for a useful testimony.

Question 10

Weakness

Answer 10

Koehnken et al. (1999) found that witnesses recalled more incorrect information when interviewed with the cognitive interview compared to the standard interview technique, perhaps because more detailed recall increases the chances of making mistakes.

Question 11

Weakness

Answer 11

The interview is far more time-consuming than the standard interview.