MEMORY: Improving the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony : Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What did Fisher and Geiselman argue

Answer 1

EWT could be improved if police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses

Question 2

F&G argued such better techniques should be based on

Answer 2

psychological insights into how memory works

Question 3

What is the Cognitive Interview

Answer 3

method using better techniques to interview EW to help em retrieve more acccurate memories

Question 4

Why is the CI called the CI

Answer 4

shows its roots in cognitive psych

Question 5

What are the 4 main techniques used in the CI

Answer 5

Report Everything

Reinstate the context

Reverse the order

Change Perspectiv e

Question 6

What happens in Report Everything

Answer 6

witnesses encouraged include all details even if they think its irrelevant or arent confident in it

Question 7

Whyin REPORT EVERYTHING are witnesses encouraged to report even the things they think irrelevant/unconfident

Answer 7

they may be important + may trigger other important memories

Question 8

What happens in reinstate the context

Answer 8

witnesses return to the og crime scene in mind and

imagine the environment e.g weather/what they saw

and their emotions . happy/bored etc

Question 9

Why do witnesses in reinstate the context imagine their emotions

Answer 9

related to context dependent forgetting

Question 10

What happens in reverse the order

Answer 10

events retold in a different order from og

e.g back to front/middle to beginning

Question 11

Why is Reverse the Order a thing

Answer 11

prevent people reporting their expectations of how event happened rather than actual events

prevents dishonesty as harder to lie when giving story ina different order + posisbly more obvious

Question 12

What happens in change the perspective

Answer 12

witnesses recall incident from other peoples perspective

e.g how it appeared to other witness or perpetrator

Question 13

Why is CHANGE THE PERSPECTIVE a thing

Answer 13

disrupt effect of expectation

disrupt effect of schema on recall

Question 14

CHANGE THE PERSPECTIVE - the schema you have for a particular setting generates what and how does this affect recall

Answer 14

schema had for a particular setting generates expectations of what wouldve happened

therefore schema is recalled as opposed to what actually happened

Question 15

what did fisher et al. develop in 1987

Answer 15

additional element sof the CI

Question 16

wHY DID FISHER ET AL develop additional elemtns of the ci

Answer 16

to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction

Question 17

Give an example of how social dynamic has been improved

Answer 17

interviwer needs to know when to give eye contact then when to relinquish it

Question 18

the enhanced CI includes ideas such as

Answer 18

reducing EW anxiety
minimsing distractions
getting witness to speak slowly
asking open ended questions

Question 19

strength of the cognitive interview

Answer 19

evidence that it works

Question 20

explain strength of the cognitive interview

Answer 20

meta analysis by konhken combined data from 55 studies comparing the e/ci with standard police interview

ci gave avg 41% increase ina ccurate info compared to SI

Only 4 studies in analysis showed no difference between the types of interviews

SHOWS CI effective technique in helping witnesses recall info that is stored in memory but not immediatley accessible

Question 21

Counterpoint to Evidence it works

Answer 21

increase in ammount of innacurate infor recalled by pt

Question 22

Explain CP to evidence it works

Answer 22

particular issue in the ECI , producing more incorrect details than the CI

CI may sacrifice quality of EWT (accuracy) in favour of quantity ( amount of details )

therefore police should treat EWT evidence from CI and ECI with caution

Question 23

What is the limitation of the CI

Answer 23

Not all of its elements equally effective or useful

Question 24

explain limitation of the CI - Not all of its elements equally effective or useful

Answer 24

milne and bull found each of techniques used alone produced more info than the standard police interview

also found combo of RE and RC produced better recall than any of the other four elements/ combo of them

confirmed police officers suspiscions some aspects of the CI more useful than others

therefore casting doubts on credibility of the whole cog interview

Question 25

Another limitation of CI

Answer 25

Police officers may be reluctant to use the CI as takes more time and training than the SI

Question 26

Explain police limtiation of the CI

Answer 26

more time needed to establish rapport with Interviewee and allow them to relax

ci requires special training and lots of forces dont’ have the resources to provide more than a few hours

suggests complete CI as it exists not a realistic mehtod for police officers to use and might be better to focus on a few elemtns like RE RC