Improving the Acuracy of EWT: The Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What are the 4 sections in the cognitive interview?

Answer 1

Report everything
Reinstate the context
Reverse the order
Change the perspective

Question 2

What is the description for reporting everything?

Answer 2

Asks the eye-witness to report everything that they remember without interruptions from the interviewer.

Question 3

What is the justification of reporting everything?

Answer 3

Memories are inter-connected with one another. So one memory might cue another.
Recollection of small details from several witnesses could be pieced together.

Question 4

What is the description for reinstating the context?

Answer 4

Interviewer encourages the eye-witness to mentally recreate the physical/psychological environment of the incident. Such as the environment.

Question 5

What is the justification for reinstating the context?

Answer 5

Useful as memories are often not accessible without the right retrieval cues. Cue-dependent forgetting.

Question 6

What is the description of reversing the order?

Answer 6

Changing the order of the description of events, start to end, end to start.

Question 7

What is the justification of reversing the order?

Answer 7

Disrupts the schema because you are not relying on what you should have seen as you are having to think about someone else.

Question 8

What is the description of changing the perspective?

Answer 8

Recalling the event from a difference persons viewpoint.

Question 9

What is the justification of changing the perspective?

Answer 9

To disrupt our schema to stop us relying on these for the information, as this would make it less accurate.

Question 10

Who added additional elements to the cognitive interview?

Answer 10

Fisher. The enhanced cognitive interview

Question 11

What does the enhanced cognitive interview focus on?

Answer 11

Social dynamics of the interaction between interviewer and eyewitness.

Question 12

What does the cognitive interview include?

Answer 12

Ideas which aim to reduce eyewitness anxiety, minimise distractions and more open questions.

Question 13

What is the cognitive interview based on?

Answer 13

Tulving and Thompson’s Encoding specificity principle

Question 14

How do you improve recall based on the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 14

To improve recall you need recall as many traces as possible.

Question 15

What does Tulving’s and Thompson’s encoding specificity principle suggest?

Answer 15

Memory is made up of lots of traces.
When you encode the info you didn’t see it but you could have felt it, heard it.

Question 16

How does the cognitive interview use the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 16

As memories are made up of lots of traces the cognitive interview accesses each of these individually.

Question 17

There is research to support the use of the cognitive interview from a meta-analysis. What evidence is there to support this claim?

Answer 17

Kohnkel et al. Conducted a meta-analysis of studies into the effectiveness of the technique. He collected data from 53 studies and in average found an increase of 34% in the amount of correct information generates, compared to an SPI.

Question 18

There is research to support the use of the cognitive interview from a meta-analysis. What explanation is there to support this claim?

Answer 18

Cognitive interview is effective at increasing accuracy of EWT.
Practical advantage of using it when interviewing witnesses to a crime.
Police should consider using this strategy as much as possible.

Question 19

One problem with the cognitive interview is that the measure of effectiveness is associated with quantity over quality. What evidence is there to support this?

Answer 19

The success is based on the amount of info we gain from them in comparison to the standard interview. However, quality and accuracy of info is more important than the amount.

Question 20

One problem with the cognitive interview is that the measure of effectiveness is associated with quantity over quality. What explanation is there to support this?

Answer 20

Previous research provides evidence of an increased amount of recall the effectiveness of the CI is less effective than first suggested.
Should be considered carefully before enforcing implementation in the police force.

Question 21

Another criticism with the cognitive interview is the amount of time training needed to implement it. What evidence is there to support this?

Answer 21

The officer is nit allowed to ask leading question and have to spend more time asking questions which are less relevant in order to not steer the convo in the way they want it to go.
They have to specially trained in order to get most accurate information out of the eye-witness.

Question 22

Another criticism with the cognitive interview is the amount of time training needed to implement it. What explanation is there to support this?

Answer 22

Economic implications such as costs to police department’s for the time needed to complete these interviews.
Police departments may be less inclined to use this technique as it reduces amount of time they can work on other cases. Reduces chance if gathering accurate EWT

Question 23

The cognitive interview may be particularly effective when interviewing older witnesses. What evidence is there to support this?

Answer 23

The CI asks people to recall all information , regardless of it’s significance and may elevate pressure getting wrong information. Mello and Fisher found that I lived accuracy of EWT in oldster adults more than younger adults.

Question 24

The cognitive interview may be particularly effective when interviewing older witnesses. What explanation is there to support this?

Answer 24

Suggests the CI is useful in increasing the accuracy of EWT in older adults.
Should consider using this where older adults are concerned.