Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: the cognitive interview Flashcards
what is the cognitive interview?
A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context of the crime in order to increase accessibility of stored information. Because our memory is made up of a network of associations rather than discrete events, memories are accessed using multiple retrieval strategies
who developed the cognitive interview?
Geiselman et al 1984
What is the first stage of the cognitive interview?
Mental reinstatement of original context
An interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate both the physical and psychological environment of the original incident. The interviewer may say.. I’d like you to try to think about the day the event happened, what was the weather like?
The aim is to make memories more accessible. People cannot always access memories that are there. They need appropriate contextual and emotional cues to retrieve memories.
What is the second stage of the cognitive interview?
Report everything
The interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event without editing anything out, even though it may seem irrelevant. Witnesses should not leave anything out even if they believe it to be insignificant or irrelevant. For example an interviewer might say please do not leave anything out. I am interested in absolutely everything that you remember, anything that pops in your head.
Memories are interconnected with one another, the recollection of one item may then cue a whole lot of other memories that may be pieced together
what is the third stage?
Change order
The interviewer may try alternative ways through the timeline of the incident for example, reversing the order of events. The rationale behind this is that our collections are influenced by schemas. If you have to recall the events starting from the end of the event backwards, this prevents your pre-existing schemas influencing what you recall.
The interviewer might say… I would like you to try something which sometimes helps people to remember. i would like you to tell me what happened backwards….
what is the final stage
Change perspective
The interviewee is asked to recall the incident from multiple perspectives for example, imagining how it would appear to other witnesses present at the time. This disrupts the effect schemas would have on recall.
For example an interviewer might ask: Try to recall the incident from the perspective of another person involved in the incident. Think about where he/she was.
Name a first AO3 point
Individual differences:
- CI may be useful when interviewing older witnesses
- Negative stereotypes about older adults’ declining memory can make witnesses overly cautious about reporting information. CI may overcome such difficulties because it stresses the importance of reporting any details regardless of perceived differences.
Mello and Fisher in 1996 compared older (mean age 72) and younger ( mean age 22) adults memory of filmed stimulated crime using either CI or a standard police interview.
- CI produced more information than the SI but significantly, the strength of the CI over the SI was greater for the old than the young
- this shows that individual differences matter that the CI is more effective when interviewing older people
Name another AO3 point
there is supporting research of the CI
A meta-analysis of 53 studies found on average, an increase in 34% in the amount of correct information generated in the CI compared to a standard interview. Kohnken et al 1999 although most of the studies involved volunteer witnesses (college students) tested in a lab (ecological validity). However, the effectiveness of the CI may be due to individual elements rather than the whole thing. Milne and Bull in 2002 found participants when interviewed, using a combination of the ‘report everything’ and ‘mental reinstatement’ components of the CI, recall was significantly higher than when using just one individual component.
Name a third evaluation point
Quality may suffer
It’s effectiveness has largely been in quantity rather than quality
The procedure is designed to produce a quantity of correct recall without compromising the quality (correct recall as a percentage of total recall). of that information
Kohnken et al in 1999 found an increase of 81% correct information but an increase of 61% incorrect information (false positives) when the enhanced CI was compared to a standard police interview.
Name a final evaluation point
Needs a certain degree of time and training
Kebbell and Wagstaff reported a problem with this technique. They said it needed more time than is often available it requires special training and forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours . Kebbell and Wagstaff 1996
