Improving the Accuracy Of EWT

Question 1

What is the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 1

• Geiselman et al suggested the Cognitive Interview (CI) in the 1980s as an attempt to map psychological knowledge of memory recall with interviewing techniques.
• The ‘cognitive’ part of the CI is based on the suggestion that reinstating an original Coding context increases the accessibility of stored information.
• Secondly, on the suggestion that memories are made up from a network of associations, so memories can be cued
  by different information.

Question 2

Report Everything:

Answer 2

The witness is asked to provide a detailed account of the event including incomplete memories.
-They are encouraged to include every detail they possibly can even it appears totally irrelevant.
- Long pauses are given, the witness in not hurried or interrupted. - This is done using free recall, and the witness may well answer in chronological order or not.

Question 3

Reinstate the Context:

Answer 3

The witness is asked to create a mental image of the original event with as much detail as possible.
- These details might include the emotion state of the
witness, sounds, smells, the weather and other physical conditions.

Question 4

Recall the Events in different orders

Answer 4

• It is natural to go through an incident from beginning to end. However, witnesses might also be asked to go through the events in reverse order, or starting from a key event and then working backwards or forwards.
  -The rationale behind this is that people often expect things to happen in a specific order and adjust their account to match this schema.
• Such accounts might include information that was expected rather being correct.
• Changing the recollection order may help to avoid false recall i.e.
  reduce the effects of schemas.

Question 5

Change Perspective

Answer 5

Witnesses can be asked to recall the event from another perspective, e.g. from
the bus driver’s point of view, from the cashier’s point of view, as if they were a fly on the ceiling, etc.
- The rationale behind this is the same as recalling the event from another’s perspective may reduce anxiety in highly
emotive/traumatising cases.

Question 6

A03 - Boon and Noon - Recall from Another Perspective

Answer 6

One of the most controversial components of the CI is that witnesses may be asked to recall the event from another perspective which leads to the theory that they are speculating, as opposed to recalling actual memories.
-Boon and Noon (1994) found that recalling from
another perspective typically does not yield additional details or additional errors, although it could be potentially valuable for highly traumatised witnesses who might find it too stressful
to describe the event from their own perspective which could lead to this aspect of CI being more useful than the SI for traumatised witnesses but likewise, the CI may not be necessary
for all crimes

Question 7

A03 - Konkhen -Recall Everything

Answer 7

Whilst many studies report an increase in the amount of information given using the CI, this does not necessarily mean that the CI is more effective than the Standard Interview (SI)
- Köhnken et al’s (1999) meta-analysis of CI’s and SI’s found an increase of 81% of correct information, and an increase of 61% of incorrect information, which could be highly timeconsuming for the police to sift through.
-Undoubtedly, the CI does increase recalled information, but maybe police who are thorough with direct questioning using SI, may extract
more relevant information questioning the usefulness of this aspect of the CI.