memory: improving accuracy of eyewitness testimony -> cognitive interview

Question 1

What is the cognitive interview?

Answer 1

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. All techniques are based on psychological knowledge of human memory

Question 2

Who proposed the cognitive interview?

Answer 2

Fisher and Geiselman (1992)

Question 3

What did Fisher and Geiselman argue?

Answer 3

They argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing eyewitnesses

Question 4

What are the four main components of the cognitive interview devised by Fisher and Geiselman?

Answer 4

• report everything
• reinstatement of context
• change order
• change perspective

Question 5

What does report everything refer to?

Answer 5

The interviewer gets the witness to recall everything that they saw from the crime scene

Question 6

Why does ‘report everything’ work?

Answer 6

Small details might help act as a cue or a trigger for far more important details as they are encouraged to include every detail of the event, even if they may seem irrelevant

Question 7

What does ‘reinstate the context’ refer to?

Answer 7

The interviewer returns the witness to the original crime scene ‘in their mind’ and they imagine the environment

Question 8

Why does ‘reinstate the context’ work?

Answer 8

When a person mentally recalls the context of the event, these details can act as a trigger, to help the person recall more information. This is based on context/state dependent forgetting where cues are used

Question 9

What does ‘reverse the order’ refer to?

Answer 9

Interviewer gets the witness to recall the events in a different chronological order to the original sequence

Question 10

Why does ‘reverse the order’ work?

Answer 10

This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events and prevents dishonesty

Question 11

What does ‘change perspective’ refer to?

Answer 11

Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives such as what the offender saw

Question 12

Why does ‘change perspective’ work?

Answer 12

The ‘holistic’ view of the event might minimise bias and disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall

Question 13

Who proposed the enhanced cognitive interview and when?

Answer 13

Fisher et. al (1987)

Question 14

What is the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 14

Adding more elements to the cognitive interview to focus on building rapport and making the interviewee more comfortable

Question 15

What does the interviewer need to know in the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 15

• know when to establish eye contact and when to avoid it
• reducing eyewitness anxiety
• open-ended questions
• minimising distractions
• getting the witness to speak slowly

Question 16

Evaluation: support for the effectiveness of the CI -> strength

Answer 16

• In a meta-analysis combining data from 55 studies with the standard police interview, Kohnken et. al (1999) found a significant increase in the amount of correct information recalled
• The CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview
• Shows that the CI is an effective technique in helping witnesses to recall information that are stored in memory but not easily accessible

Question 17

Counterpoint -> evidence against the effectiveness of the CI

Answer 17

• Kohnken et. al also found an increase in the amount of inaccurate information recalled by pps
• Particularly an issue in the ECI which produced more incorrect details than the CI
• cognitive interviews may sacrifice quality of EWT in favour of quantity of details
• Suggests the CI may be of limited practical use due to increased errors

Question 18

Evaluation: some elements may be more useful -> limitation

Answer 18

• not all of the elements of the CI are equally useful/effective
• Milne and Bull (2002) found that when they used a combination of ‘report everything’ and ‘context reinstatement’ participants’ recall was significantly higher than any of the other elements
• confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others

Question 19

Evaluation: CI is time-consuming -> limitation

Answer 19

• police offers may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes more time and requires special training that they may not be able to allocate time for
• e.g. more time is needed to establish rapport with a witness and allow them to relax
• many officers do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours for special training (Kebell and Wagstaff 1997)
• suggests that the complete CI is not a realistic method for police officers to use and it might be better to focus on just a few key elements