Memory Booklet 4: Cognitive Interview Flashcards
What was the aim of Geiselman’s study?
-To investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview compared to the standard police interview
What was the method of Geiselman’s study?
-Two groups of undergraduate students both watched a video of a crime. Half were interviewed using the CROP cognitive interview, other half interviewed with standard police interview
What were the findings of Geiselman’s study?
-Group who were interviewed using the standard police interview remembered 50% less correct details than cognitive interview group, however number of incorrect details same across both groups
What happened in Fisher’s study?
-Trained a group of detectives in Florida in the use of Cognitive interview schedule and then assessed their performance when interviewing genuine witnesses to crimes
-When their performance was compared to pre-training levels, it was found that the information gain was as much as 47 percent
What did Fisher and Geiselman argue?
That the EWT 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 this the cognitive interview
What are the 4 techniques in the cognitive interview?
- Report everything
- Context reinstatement
- Change in recall order
- Change in perspective
What is stage 1. report everything?
Witnesses are encouraged to report everything that they remember without filtering what they believe may or may not be relevant
What is stage 2. Context reinstatement?
Witnesses are encouraged to recall details of the scene, including the weather that day, their mood and thoughts at the time, who was there, what they were wearing (to prevent retrieval failure from state and context cues)
What is stage 3. change in reclal order?
Witnesses are asked to recall the event from the end, or from the middle (if the order is varied it will reduce the amount that a person uses prior knowledge, expectations or schemas to recall)
What is stage 4. Change in perspective?
Witnesses are asked to recall what other people may have seen (another persons viewpoint will reduce the amount that a person uses prior knowledge/ scheme to recall)
What is the AO1 for cognitive interview split into?
-Cognitive interview
-Enhanced cognitive interview
What is the enhanced cognitive interview?
Fisher et al, developed some additional elements of the cognitive interview to focus on the social dynamics of the situation
These include:
-Interviewer establishing eye contact
-Reducing anxiety
-Minimising distractions
-Asking the witness to speak slowly
-Asking open questions
What is the big picture?
-Main focus in this topic is to compare standard interview by police to the cognitive interview to improve accuracy of testimonies
-Cognitive interview uses psychology’s knowledge from the cognitive approach and the research on memory to make EWT more effective on recall
-Therefore, knowledge on schema’s and retrieval failure in forgetting is crucial
What would be expected for an application question on cognitive interview?
You would be expected to identify the 4 aspects in a given stimulus and apply this to explain why it would improve the accuracy as well as stating the 4 components
What does the enhanced cognitive interview focus on doing?
The enhanced cognitive interview is still using these techniques but focused on improving the social dynamics in an interview as well as cognitive aspects
