Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Cognitive Interview

Question 1

Cognitive interview

Answer 1

a method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main techniques, all based on well-established psychological knowledge of human memory- report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order, and the change perspective.

Question 2

Step 1 of CI

Answer 2

REPORT EVERYTHING
include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it.

Question 3

Step 2 of CI

Answer 3

REINSTATE THE CONTEXT
return to original crime scene ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment and their emotions. This is related to context-dependent forgetting discussed.

Question 4

Step 3 of CI

Answer 4

REVERSE THE ORDER
events recalled in different chronological order to the original sequence.
done to prevent people reporting their expectations of now the event must have happened rather than the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty.

Question 5

Step 4 of CI

Answer 5

CHANGE PERSPECTIVE
recall incident from other people’s perspectives.
This is done to disrupt effect of expectations and scheme on recall.