Improving the accuracy of EWT: Cognitive interviews

Question 1

Who created the cognitive interview

Answer 1

Fisher and Geiselman

Question 2

What is the first technique of the cognitive interview

Answer 2

1. Report everything - witnesses are encouraged to report everything and every single detail of an event, even if they seemed trivial as they can trigger other memories

Question 3

What is the second technique?

Answer 3

2. Reinstate the context - They should return to the original crime scene mentally and imagine the environment and their emotions

Question 4

What is the third technique?

Answer 4

• For participants to recall the events in a different order to prevent expectations of how the event occured

Question 5

What is the fourth technique?

Answer 5

• Change perspective
• They should recall the events from other perspectives to disrupt schemas or expectations

Question 6

What is the enhanced CI

Answer 6

• fisher et al added additional elements such as eye contact, building relationships with eye witnesses and asking open ended questions to reduce anxiety

Question 7

What is a strength of CI?

Answer 7

• research support, Gunter conducted a meta analysis of 55 studies comparing CI to standard interviews and found a 41% increase for CI. However, research found that with ECI there was decreased accuracy.

Question 8

What are two weaknesses?

Answer 8

1. CI is very time consuming and requires training as you need to establish rapport with eye witnesses so it is not realistic.
2. It is not equally useful, Bull and Milne found that using only a combination of report everything and reinstating context produced better recall than all of them. This causes a doubt on the credibility of the four steps of CI