Improving the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony: Cognitive Interview

Question 1

The cognitive interview

Fisher & Geiselman (1992) argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses. They recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works, and called these techniques collectively the cognitive interview (C I) to indicate its foundation in cognitive psychology. There are four main techniques that are used:

Answer 1

1. Report everything
   Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it. Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories.
2. Reinstate the context
   The witness should return to the original crime scene “in their mind” and imagine the environment (such as what the weather was like and what they could see) and their emotions (such as what were their feelings). This is related to context-dependent forgetting.
3. Reverse the order
   Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, for example, from the final point back to the beginning, or from the middle to the beginning.
   This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event might have happened rather than the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty because it’s harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it.
4. Change perspective
   Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives. For example, how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall. The schema you have for a particular setting (such as going into a shop) generate expectations of what would’ve happened and then it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened.

Question 2

The enhanced cognitive interview (ECI)

Answer 2

Fisher et al. (1987) developed some additional elements of the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction. For example, the interview needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it. The enhanced CI also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions.

Question 3

Evaluation of the cognitive interview (it’s time consuming, some elements may be more valuable than others, support for the effectiveness of the ECI)

Answer 3

• Police may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes much more time than the standard police interview. For example, more time is needed to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax. The CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours (Kebbell & Wagstaff 1996).
  This means it is on likely that the ‘proper’ version of the CI is actually used which may explain why police have not been that impressed by it.

+ Milne & Bull (2002) found that each individual element was equally valuable. Each technique used singly produced more information than the standard police interview. However, Milne & Bull found that using a combination of ‘report everything’ and ‘context reinstatement’ produced better recall than any of the other conditions. This confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others.
This finding is a strength because it suggests that at least two elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even if the full CI isn’t used. This in turn increases the credibility of the CI amongst those who use it – police officers.

+ Research suggests that the ECI may offer special benefits. For example, a meta-analysis by Köhnken et al. (1999) combined data from 50 studies. The ECI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police.
This is a strength because studies such as this one indicate that there are real practical benefits to the police of using the enhanced version of the 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.