Standard and Cognitive Interviews

Question 1

What does a Standard interview consist of?

Answer 1

• Closed questions- no room for individuals to speak freely/ frequently interrupted.
• Direct questions about a particular event/ topic.
• Might have relevant info but no opportunity to share it.
• Tends to be inaccurate.
• Quick to conduct.

Question 2

What does a Cognitive Interview consist of?

Answer 2

• Open questions.
• Broad questions- no interruptions (important, ‘flow’ is not interrupted).
• Lots of opportunities to speak freely/ recall info (able to give details).
• Having a trained interviewer.

Question 3

Process

Answer 3

1. Individuals being interviewed need to feel comfortable.
2. Use specific techniques (4 of them).

Question 4

What are the specific techniques?

Answer 4

1. Recall everything.
2. Context reinstatement.
3. Change the order.
4. Change the perspective.

Question 5

1. Recall everything

Answer 5

• Ask an open ended question.
• Give a detailed account including seemingly irrelevant details.

Question 6

2. Context reinstatement

Answer 6

• Mentally recreate the scenario- ‘take yourself back’.

Question 7

How do these techniques (1 & 2) improve the accuracy of recall?

Answer 7

• Both of these techniques work on the basis there’s a free flowing account of info.
• Used as ‘cues’ for recall of significant details.
• More likely to evoke accurate memories.

Question 8

3. Change the order

Answer 8

• Recall events from a particular point- move backwards/ forwards through a series of events.
• Forced to remember it in a different series.

Question 9

4. Change the perspective

Answer 9

• Recall the event from….

e.g. ‘the other side of the street’.

Question 10

How do these (3 & 4) improve the accuracy of recall?

Answer 10

• Both of these are forcing the witness to focus on what actually happened, which prevents the use of schema.
• Schema help us to make assumptions/ distort memory/ inaccurately fill in the gaps)- and ensure ppt’s do not talk about what they assumed they saw based on prior knowledge.

Question 11

Geiselman (Aim)

Answer 11

• To investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview.

Question 12

Geiselman (Method)

Answer 12

• Participants viewed a film of a violent crime and, after 48 hours, were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods: the cognitive interview; a standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police; or an interview using hypnosis.
• The number of facts accurately recalled and the number of errors made were recorded.

Question 13

Geiselman (Results)

Answer 13

• The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 41.2, for hypnosis it was 38.0 and for the standard interview it was 29.4.
• There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition.

Question 14

Geiselman (Conclusion)

Answer 14

• The cognitive interview leads to better memories of events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared with a traditional interview method.

Question 15

Fisher (What did he do?)

Answer 15

• In a real-life test, Fisher trained detectives from the Miami Police Department to use the cognitive interview.
• Police interviews with eyewitnesses and victims were videotaped and the total number of statements were scored.
• A second eyewitness was then asked to confirm whether these were true or false.

Question 16

Fisher (Results)

Answer 16

• Compared to the standard procedure used, the cognitive interview produced 46% increase in recall and 90% accuracy.
• The findings suggested that the cognitive interview is more effective than the standard interview, producing higher recall and reducing errors.