Interviewing Eyewitnesses 1& 2 (wk 4)

Question 1

Is retrieval perfect? What can happen at retrieval?

Answer 1

-No
-When you bring a memory to mind it becomes vulnerable to change. Therefore, interviewing witnesses is another time where memory is ‘unset’

Question 2

What is the spreading activation theory of memory? Who proposed it?

Answer 2

• information is encoded in into cognitive units
  -the strength of these units increases with practice and decays with delay
  -the units form an interconnected network
  -retrieval is achieved by spreading activation throughout the network
  -the level of activation in the network determines the rate and probability of recall

John anderson

Question 3

According to spreading activation theory what is a weak memory trace? What is a strong memory trace?

Answer 3

-Weak trace: not many units
-Strong trace: lots of units

With strong trace you are more likely to encounter a cue in the environment that triggers memory/ activation of the network

Question 4

What did Endel Tulving contribute to research on the determinants of retrieval?

Answer 4

-Retrieval is a joint product of 1) stored memory traces and 2) cues that are available at retrieval

-Encoding specificity principle: to the extent that encoding conditions and retrieval conditions are similar, memory will be enhanced
* Context plays a large role in retrieval

(study in same room as sit the exam will remember better)

Question 5

How much influence does the investigator have on the memory of witnesses at each stage?

Answer 5

• Encoding (little or none)
  -Storage (a little: Try and interview people as quickly as possible so don’t decay, separate witness’ so they don’t talk to each other)
  -Retrieval (enormous amounts)

Question 6

What interview protocols have been developed ?

Answer 6

-Cognitive Interview (adults)
-NICHD Protocol (children)

Question 7

What two things are we striving for when we complete interviews with witness’?

Answer 7

-Complete information
-Accurate information

Often there is a trade off between the two

Question 8

What two things are we striving for when we complete interviews with witness’?

Answer 8

-Complete information
-Accurate information

Often there is a trade off between the two

Question 9

What are the four important features that all interview protocols agree are important?

Answer 9

-Questioning style
-Rapport
-Clarification of interview rules
-Interviewer objectivity

Question 10

What hierarchy exists with interview questions?

Answer 10

Open-ended questions
Specific questions
Forced choice questions
Suggestive Questions
Leading Questions

(from most preferable i.e. accurate to least preferable)

However, to consider from an all practical perspective: all open ended questions/ free recall may be the most accurate but it does not yield as much information. A mixture of more specific and more open ended questions needs to be used.

Question 11

What is the funneling technique for interviewing?

Answer 11

-Interviews should start with a prolonged ‘free recall’ phase, in which the witness is asked to recall as much as he or she can remember

-If interviewers need to ask more specific questions they should jump back to more open ended questions straight afterwards

Question 12

Is free recall hard to maintain? What did Fisher, Geiselman & Raymond, 1987 find about mean free uninterrupted recall length?

Answer 12

-Interviewers find it extremely difficult to not interrupt the witness during free recall as thinking/ silent time is uncomfortable for them
-One study found that the mean length of uninterrupted free recall was a mere 7.5 seconds (Fisher, Geiselman, & Raymond, 1987)

Question 13

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 13

-Subjects viewed film of an automobile accident
-They then answered questions about the film immediately afterwards
-Manipulation = the wording of the questions (“How fast were the cars going when they XXX into each other?”)
-Subjects’ estimates of speed were dependent on the question wording (highest estimate when said smashed)
-Assessed reporting of broken glass at the accident scene
-Reporting of broken glass was related to the wording of the speed estimate question (if wording was smashed most likely to say there was glass)

Question 14

Loftus & Zanni (1975)

Answer 14

The article used in the sentence “did you see a/the broken headlight” resulted in a huge difference to the percentage of participants saying yes there was (the= twice is likely to agree)

Question 15

Anatomically detailed dolls

Answer 15

-The use of dolls was well established in forensic practice before people began conducting research as it seems like it would be something that could work (good face value)

-However, in practice dolls require children to do things that are cognitively complex:
understand dual representation
map past events onto dolls
stay on task without drifting into play

Several unsupportive findings:
– Children suspected of abuse engage in more “play” and reported
more fantastic details when interviewed with dolls that when
interviewed without.
– In the lab, dolls lead to increases in false reports of genital and anal touching, and exaggeration of innocuous touching.
– Dolls tend to increase errors without necessarily leading to an increase in detail.

By the mid 1990s, researchers and policy groups had arrived at the following conclusions:
– Children’s interactions with dolls are not diagnostic of abuse.
– Interviewers should not use dolls in ways that ask children to demonstrate abuse prior to verbal reports of abuse.
– Dolls are especially risky with children under 5 years of age.

Question 16

Visual aids: jack, Martyn & Zajac (2015)

Answer 16

• Showed children, adolescents, and adults a film clip of a simulated crime.
• Around 15 minutes later, participants were asked to give a free recall account of what happened.
• They were then asked to recall the event again. This time, they were assigned to one of four conditions:
• Own sketch
• Provided sketch
• Photograph
• No visual aid

-Regardless of age, visual aids increased the amount of information that participants provided.
-Visual aids actually increased the proportion of accurate information provided.

Question 17

How might visual aids help?

Answer 17

– Increase the amount of time spent in the interview?
– Decrease social barriers between interviewer and interviewee?
– Help witnesses to provide their own retrieval cues? (spreading activation theory)
– Help witnesses to mentally reinstate context?
(Encoding Specificity Principle)
– Influence the interviewer’s behaviour (stops them from interrupting as much)

Question 18

In a general sense, how can rapport help with interviewing eye witnesses?

Answer 18

-The more at ease a witness is, the more information he or she is likely to impart
-Especially true when topic is sensitive or traumatic, or witness is fearful of reporting the incident
-Rapport building linked to later interview performance

Question 19

Sternberg, Lamb, Hershkowitz, et al. (1997)?

Answer 19

-51 investigative interviews with child complainants of sexual abuse (aged between 4 and 12 years)

-Style of rapport building phase manipulated (open-ended or direct questions)
E.g., “Tell me everything that you did on the first night of Hanukkah” versus “Did you light candles on the first night of Hanukkah?”

-First interview question = “I heard that something may have happened to you. Please tell me everything that happened, from the beginning to
the end, as best you can remember” (important to note: this was the same for everyone, it was only the rapport building phase that was manipulated)

-Children in the open-ended rapport building condition uttered over twice as many words and gave over twice as many details in response to the
first interview question

-Improvement was maintained over subsequent open-ended questions

Question 20

What is the tripartite model of rapport?

Answer 20

The Tripartite Model of Rapport (Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal, 1990) emphasizes three components:

– mutual attentiveness (focused interaction, involvement, and mutual interest)
– positivity (mutual friendliness, caring, and positive affect)
– coordination (balance, fluency of interaction, and shared understanding)

Question 21

What were the three different categories of rapport behaviours shown in table 2 from Gabbert er al., 2021?

Answer 21

-Verbal
-Non-verbal
-Para-verbal

Question 22

What were the three different categories of function of rapport behaviour used in table 3 of Gabbert et al., 2021?

Answer 22

-Personality/ relationship building
-Presenting an approachable demeanor
-Paying attention

Question 23

Jakobsen (2017)

Answer 23

Norway bombing and mass shooting

Victims reported the most positive experiences of their police interview if they:
– could control their own narrative
– were able to present a coherent account (not interrupted)
– were listened to by an interviewer promoting safety
– perceived the police as empathetic and professional
– could cope with emotional reactions in the interview
– regarded the interview as meaningful

Question 24

Clarification of interview rules

Answer 24

Question 25

What is meant by the phrase: Witnessed events are stored at several different levels of precision…

Answer 25

Some people are very general others remember perfectly continuum from:

Gist to Verbatim

Question 26

What is the difficulty that presents when it comes to level of reporting + what three things influence this?

Answer 26

-Usually in every day life we don’t want a verbatim account of everything that has happened, just want the general. When eyewitness’ are being interviewed they therefore tend to report at the general level unless otherwise requested

-Level of reporting is selected based on:
past experiences
assumed communication rules
assumptions about the interviewer’s knowledge

Question 27

Barrett, Jalota, Westera, & Zajac (in prep)

Answer 27

-104 participants watched a simulated crime

-All interviewed:
standard instructions
free recall
open questions
yes/no questions

-Half given pen description example (context: police often try describe a pen to illustrate how much details they want witnesses to give: attempt to override tendency to under report)

-The pen example resulted in more information during free recall, with no loss of accuracy

-There was no significant effect of pen condition on responses to open questions, or yes/no questions

-BUT need to consider…
when free recall and open question responses were combined, the pen example had no significant effect

effects on victims and witnesses of pen example? (seems a little out of place/ maybe offensive when dealing with traumatic issues)

effects on jurors of pen example? (often jurors find long explanations pointless- they can lead to distrust in witnesses as jurors believe they are being coached too much)

could a general focus on detail backfire? (we only need to know the details that are important not very single possible detail: can lead to witness’ thinking they are not doing well enough/ pulling out of cases if push them too hard)

Question 28

In what ways is interviewer objectivity important?

Answer 28

When interviewers are not objective, they can:
-Shape witnesses’ reports (e.g. suggestive questions)
-Overlook or ignore relevant information (get blinkered)
-Inaccurately report interview contents (written statements from detectives do not always match the video interviews- may be unintentional)

Question 29

McMartin Preschool case

Answer 29

-August 1983
-Mother noticed genital redness on 2-year-old son.
-Mother and police became certain that the offender was Ray Buckey
-LAPD sent out letters, giving rise to further allegations
-Interviews conducted
-By 1984, there were 350 allegations against 7 teachers at McMartin
-The case continued until 1990, when all charges were finally dropped
-Case lasted 6 years, and cost $15 million

Question 30

Multiple Poor Techniques (Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw, 1998)

Answer 30

-Identified 5 problematic questioning techniques from the McMartin

Preschool Case:
-Suggestive Questions
-Referring to Other People
-Positive and Negative Consequences (children who disclosed were told they were smart and good, those who didn’t were made to feel stupid)
-Asked and Answered (repeatedly asked the same things until they got the answer they ‘wanted’ from the children)
-Inviting Speculation

• 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children
  -An experimenter “Manny” came to the children’s schools and read them a story
  -Compared the use of the McMartin questioning “package” with the use of suggestive questions alone (suggestive questions were the control in this case)
  -“Yes” answers to misleading questions were much higher for the package condition than the suggestive questioning condition
  -This resulted in many “false allegations”
  -“Yes” answers to misleading questions increased across the course of the interview

Question 31

Does educating interviewers on how to best ask questions seem to work?

Answer 31

Studies have yet to find a reliable correlation between interviewers’ knowledge of appropriate questioning techniques and their actual interviewing practice.