Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Cognitive interviews Flashcards
Who were the psychologists who introduced cognitive interviews as a way to improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies?
Fisher and Geiselman
What did Fish and Geiselman argue?
They argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved if the police used better techniques whilst interviewing witnesses.
They recommended the technqiues should be bsed on psycholgiical insights on the workings of the brain.
These techniques were collectively called the cognitive interview based on report everything, reinstating context, reverse the order of the account and changing perspective
What does the “report everything” stage involve?
Why does it involve this?
Witnesses were encouraged by the interviewer to report every single detail of the event, even if it seemed irrelevant. This done because the extra detail may trigger other memories
What does the “reinstating context” stage involve?
Why is this done during this stage?
The witness should return to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment (weather,sight and sounds etc.)
This is done based on the principle of retrieval failure/cue - dependent forgetting
What does the “reverse the order” stage involved?
Why is this stage done?
The witness should recall the events in a different order to the original sequence.
This is done to reduce the possibility that recall may be influenced by schemas/expectations
What does the change perspective stage involve?
Why is this stage done?
The witness recalls events from a different perspective, for example the way others would have seen the events
This is done so the influence of expectations is reduced
Fisher et al developed additional elements to cognitive interviews. What was the version referred to as?
The enhanced cognitive interview (ECI)
Outline the enhanced cognitive interview by Fisher et al
Fisher et al developed additional elements of the cognitive interview. This involved the interviewer asking open ended questions, adapting language to suit the witness, asking the witness to speak slowly and taking steps to reduce the anxiety of the witness. For example allowing pauses and breaks
What is a limitation of the cognitive interview? (it is time consuming)
The CI is time consuming as more time is needed to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax. In turn, this might make police officials more reluctant to use it as more time will be taken up than a standard police interview. Additionally CI requires special training which takes time and is expensive. As a result, this would prove to create even more resistance to police using the technique.
What is a strength of the cognitive interview? (support for the effectiveness of the ECI)
Research suggests that the enhanced cognitive interview may offer special benefits. For example, a meta analysis by Kohnken et al combined data for 50 studies. It was found that the enhance CI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police. This is a strength because this indicates that there are real practical benefits to the police by using the enhanced version of CI. The research shows that it gives the police a greater chance of catching and charging criminals, which is beneficial to society as a whole.
What is a strength of the cognitive interview? (some elements may be more valuable than others)
Psychologists found that all elements were equally valuable
and each technique used independently produced more information than the standard police interview. However, it was found that a combination of reporting everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any of the other conditions. This finding provides a strength for enhanced CI because it suggests that the two elements can be separately to improve police interviews, even if police forces cannot use the full CI
What is a limitation of the CI? (variations of the CI are used)
The cognitive interview is hard to assess and study the effectiveness of the CI. This is because police forces will use slightly different CI techniques and evolve their own methods. Additionally, during these studies slightly different CI techniques or enhance CI are used, making it harder to draw comparisons
