improving the accuracy of ewt Flashcards
what is the cognitive interview
fisher and geiselman- 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 and called these techniques collectively the cognitive interview
indicate foundation in cognitive psychology
what is report everything
witnesses encouraged to cindlude every single detail of event
may seem irrelevant or witness doesnt feel confident about it
trivial details may be important and they may trigger important memories
what is the reinstate the context
witness should return to original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment and their emotions
related to context dependent forgetting
what is the reverse the order
events should be recalled in a different order from original sequence from beginning middle to end
done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than reporting actual events
prevents dishonesty- harder for people to produce untruthful account if they have to reverse it
what is the change perspective
witnesses should recall incident from other peoples perspectives
done to disrupt effect of expectations and effect on schema on recall
schema you have for particular setting generate expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what happened
what is the enhanced cognitive interview
fisher- developed additional elements to focus on social dynamic of interaction
interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it
enhanced ci includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety minismising distractions getting witness to speak slowly and asking open ended questions
what is the support for the effectiveness of the ci (eval)
evidence it works
meta analysis combined data from 55 studies comparing the ci with the standard police interview
ci gave an average 41% increase in accurate info cmapred wtih standard interview, only 4 studies in analysis showed no difference between types of interview
shows ci effective technique in helping witnesses to recall ino that is stored in memory but not accessible
kohnken-found increase in amount of inaccurate info recalled by pps
particular issue in eci which produced more incorrect details than the ci
cognitive interviews ay sacrifice quality of ewt in favour of quantity
means police officers should treat ew evidence from cis or ecis with caution
what are some elements may be more useful (eval)
not all elements are equally effective or useful
milne and bull-each 4 techniques used alone produced more info than standard police interview
using combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them
confirmed police officers suspicions that some aspects are more useful than otehrs
casts some doubt on credibility of the overall cognitive interview
what is the ci is time consuming (eval)
police officers may be reluctant to use ci because takes more time and training than the standard police interview
more time needed to establish rapport with witness and allow them to relax
requires special training and many forces do not have resources to provide more than few hours
complete ci as it exists is not reliatic method for police officers to use and it might be better to focus on just a few key elements
