Memory : Cognitive Interview Flashcards
What is Cognitive Interview?
A method with four techniques that has been developed to improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
What are the FOUR techniques carried out in Cognitive Interview?
- Report Everything— improves accuracy of eyewitness testimony as it improves the accuracy of retrieval cues (e.g context dependant, state dependant) which, according to the encoding specificity principle, increases the likelihood that the witness will accurately retrieve information from their LTM.
- Reinstate the context — requires witness to imagine themselves back at the scene of the crime and report on both their external and internal states. This increases the availability of retrieval cues which increases the likelihood that the witness will accurately retrieve info from their LTM.
- Reverse the order — the witness is asked to recall the events in reverse chronological order. This technique is designed to increase the accuracy of EWT by disrupting the witnesses schemas. Meaning the witness will hopefully remember the events accurately as they happened rather than how they expected them to happen.
- Change Perspective — the witness is asked to recall the events from another persons perspective. Like reverse the order, this technique is designed to disrupt the effects of the schemas. Meaning the witnesses will hopefully remember events accurately.
What research support is there for the Cognitive Interview?
The Cognitive Interview is the way of improving Eye Witness Testimony. A meta analysis of 53 studies found that on average the use of cognitive interview had an increase of 34% correct information given during EWT compared to the standard police interview. This finding supports the claim that cognitive interview is an effective way to improve EWT. Moreover, this study’s use of a meta analysis strengthens its conclusions on the effectiveness of the cognitive interview improving EWT as a meta analysis is one of the strongest types of evidence in science. By combining the results of 53 studies, this meta analysis is one of the strongest types of evidence in science as it creates a much larger overall sample than a single study. Thus, it is more representative of ordinary people as it can be generalised to the real world. However, this study’s findings are undermined by inconsistencies in the delivery of the standard police interview since there is no agreed method for cognitive interview. Every interviewer has their own approach, making it difficult to know whether the results are from the cognitive interview or because of other factors in the style of delivery.
What is a Limitation of the Cognitive Interview as a way of improving eyewitness testimony?
It has been difficult to implement. The main issue is time, the cognitive interview requires significant time dedicated to training the officers in administering it. It also takes longer to conduct than the standard interview due to many techniques involved. Meaning it has been difficult to actually practice cognitive interview in real life situations involving eyewitness testimony. Thus is may be a good theoretical tool for improving eyewitness testimony but unless easy to implement it wont be helpful to investigators.
What results have there been for the cognitive interview?
It has made mixed success with different age groups. Some research has found that in very young children under the age of 6, recall of events was slightly less accurate , possibly due to the complexity of the instructions provided as part of the cognitive interview. Other research has revealed that the cognitive interview was especially effective for the elderly. This suggests that that individual differences affect the extent to which the cognitive interview improves eyewitness testimony. This means that police departments need to use the cognitive interview in a targeted way, rather than assuming it will improve everyone’s EWT. Thus the cognitive interview is limited as it’s not effective at improving EWT for all demographic groups.
