Task 2 Flashcards
What is the structure of the (revised) Cognitive Interview?
- the 4 steps
(Table 2, Wells et al., 2006)
1st - built rapport (personalize + give control to witness)
2nd - recreate the context of the original event and ask for detail recount
3rd - open-narration (first free recall, then open ended question, then asked for last details which might be hidden in the brain ;) )
4th - closure (give a little time, contact info exchange)
What is the Cognitive Interview?
- in general
= collective interview strategies which are operating upon the principles from social and cognitive psychology
- the essential idea is to improve the informativeness and accuracy of the witness testimony by not only improving the memory retrieval and avoiding common mistakes (like asking suggesting questions)
(BUT also to improve the communication and the trust between the interviewer and the witness and thereby facilitating the interview –> see ECI)
–> how they do that? see 4 steps
What are the components of the Cognitive Interview?
- 4 components mnemonic
1) Mental reinstatement of context
- derived from the encoding specificity hypothesis (Gooden & Baddeley, 1975 –> diver experiment)
2) Report everything!
3) Recall events in different order
4) Change perspective
The different versions of the cognitive interview?
- The enhanced cognitive interview
- The modified cognitive interview
ECI
- enhances the CI to get even more correct information (proven to be the case)
- Example: includes supportive interviewer behaviours, the use of rapport building, and “transferring control” of the interview to the witness
MCI
- modifies the enhanced version
- mainly looses the changing perspective mnemonic
- a little bit shortened –> more suitable for children
- comparable effectiveness to the ECI
The structure interview
= is used as a control to the cognitive interview
- it has a similar structure to the CI but without the mnemonics
Pros and Cons of the CI?
Pros:
- elicits more information without decreasing accuracy
- -> informativeness increases
Cons:
- demands more time and resources of the police (costly!)
- when there are multiple witnesses there could be a delay due to the lengthy process –> this could have negative effects on the informativeness of a witnesses’ testimony –> here SAI comes into play :)
What is the self-administered interview?
- general
= enables witnesses to record their memories of an incident by themselves whilst following a specific protocol of instructions and questions
What does the SAI look like?
- 5 sections
- background info about the SAI to the witness
- instructions about Context Reinstatement and Report Everything (CI components)
- -> ‘take a few moments to picture in your mind where you were, what you saw, what you were thinking and how you were feeling at the time’ - free recall (provide as much detail as possible!)
- sketch of the scene to get important spatial information
- open-ended questions relating to the event that witnesses might not previously have thought to mention
(e. g. details of the viewing conditions at the scene of the event + info on other possible witnesses)
Pros and Cons of the SAI?
Pros:
- The SAI should support and enhance recall and, as a consequence, increase the reliability of eyewitness evidence
- Use of the SAI will minimise the burden on police resources, particularly when an incident involves multiple witnesses
- Allows for all witnesses to provide evidence, regardless of the perceived ‘status’ of a witness
- SAI allows collection of info from these more peripheral witnesses who may, hold important pieces of info of a different perspective of the incident or an earlier or later location in timeline of the incident
- Witnesses using the SAI can all give evidence simultaneously
Cons:
Lack of ‘social’ support which plays a central role in the enhanced CI
Krix, A.C., Sauerland, M., Raymaekers, L.H.C., Memon, A., Quaedflieg, C.W.E.M., & Smeets, T. (2016). Eyewitness evidence obtained with the Self-Administered Interview is unaffected by stress.
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
LIMITATIONS
- to examine the effect that stress has on the testimony obtained with the SAI vs. written free recall
- 127 pp
- 2 (stress: control vs. stress) × 2 (interview
type: FR vs. SAI) between-participants design - first completed either the MAST or a control (then the experimenter left the room)
- witnessed a staged theft of the experimenters phone by a confederate (did not know it was staged)
- were asked to either do the SAI or a written free recall
- none of the main effects of stress and interactions between stress and interview, were significant
- only main effect that was significant was that the pp who did the SAI recalled a higher number of correct details
- not really ground truth (although try to achieve this by having the confederate follow a protocol)
- study did not allow a separate inspection of the effects of stress
at encoding and at retrieval.
Krix, A.C., Sauerland, M., Raymaekers, L.H.C., Memon, A., Quaedflieg, C.W.E.M., & Smeets, T. (2016). Eyewitness evidence obtained with the Self-Administered Interview is unaffected by stress.
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
LIMITATIONS
- to examine the effect that stress has on the testimony obtained with the SAI vs. written free recall
- 127 pp
- 2 (stress: control vs. stress) × 2 (interview
type: FR vs. SAI) between-participants design - first completed either the MAST or a control (then the experimenter left the room)
- witnessed a staged theft of the experimenters phone by a confederate (did not know it was staged)
- were asked to either do the SAI or a written free recall
- none of the main effects of stress and interactions between stress and interview, were significant
- only main effect that was significant was that the pp who did the SAI recalled a higher number of correct details
- -> stress didn’t affect memory performance
- -> SAI can enhance recall quantity
- -> possible explanation for null-finding: stress was both present/absent during encoding and retrieval (encoding specificity hypothesis)
- not really ground truth (although try to achieve this by having the confederate follow a protocol)
- study did not allow a separate inspection of the effects of stress at encoding and at retrieval
- only saliva samples were taken not blood pressure
Co-witness effect - Contra
- What could go wrong? (3 processes)
- How to study it? (3 methods)
Social contagion of memory:
1) Normative influences guide behaviour (cost of disagreeing)
2) Informational influences. A person reports something another person said because they are dependent on them for information to resolve uncertainty
3) A false memory was developed
1) Pairs of participants are shown a large nr of stimuli and then tested after another. What the first person says often affects what the second person says. –> conformity
2) Like the typical eyewitness situation-participants see a crime sequence and then discuss the event with other participants or confederates (feeds a few misinformation).
3) Participants are provided with information about what co-witnesses have said and how many.
Co-wittness effect - Pro
Bärthel, G.A., Wessel, I., Huntjens, R.J.C., & Verwoerd, J. (2017). Collaboration enhances later individual memory for emotional material.
Aim
Method
Results
(Limitations)
- examining collaborative effects on memory for emotional stimuli
- female undergraduates watched an emotional movie
- recalled it either collaboratively (n= 60) or individually (n= 60)
- followed by an individual free recall test and a recognition test
- replicated the standard collaborative inhibition effect –> while collaborating less details mentioned
- collaborative condition displayed better post-collaborative individual memory (more correct details)
–> more importantly, in post-collaborative free recall, the centrality of the information to the movie plot did not play an important role
• Recognition rendered slightly different result so Although collaboration rendered more correct recognition for more central details, it did not enhance recognition of background details
•The collaborative and individual conditions did not differ with respect to overlap of unique correct items in free recall
•Yet, during recognition former collaborators more unanimously endorsed correct answers, as well as errors –> more informative, not more accurate
•Extraversion, neuroticism, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms did not moderate the influence of collaboration on memory
Co-witness effect - Pro
Vredeveldt, A., van Deuren, S., & van Koppen, P.J. (2019) Remembering with a friend or a stranger: Comparing acquainted and unacquainted pairs in collaborative eyewitness interviews.
Aim
Method
Result
Limitations
- investigate the impact of collaboration on memory and the effect of the acquaintances of the co-witnesses
- the experimenter picked up pairs (friends, partners) after they seen a movie together in the cinema
- then they asked them to come in 5 days later and they assigned them to 3 conditions (collaborative - acquainted, collaborative - unacquainted, nominal=alone); each 20 “pairs”
- then they
1st all individual interviews (4 phases: free recall, open-ended question about what was said during the free recall, questions about the characters and questions about the surroundings)
2nd conditions
3rd individual again
(- dependent variable: Number of correct remembered details) - in general, collaborative pairs had more correct detail and less incorrect details in their final report –> so more informative and more accurate (yeah! co-witness effect)
- however, the level of familiarity did not have an effect
Co-witness Contra
Hope, L., Ost, J., Gabbert, F., Healey, S., & Lenton, E. (2008). ‘‘With a little help from my friends’’: The role of co-witness relationship in susceptibility to misinformation.
Aim
Method
Result
- inaccuracies through post-event misinformation through co-witnesses influencing each other
- -> examined the role of co-witness relationship on the co-witness effect
- 96 participants viewed an event
- then discussed the witnessed event with a stranger, a romantic partner or friend
- one member of each pair saw a theft take place during the witnessed event, other did not
- individual group participants did not discuss the witnessed event with anyone (control)
- all co-witness conditions produced less accurate recall accounts than participants who did not interact with another witness –> neg. co-witness effect
- witnesses who were previously acquainted with their co-witness (either in a friendship or romantic relationship) were significantly more likely to report information obtained from their co-witness that they had not seen themselves
- prior acquaintance also led to an increased number of incorrect attributions of both guilt and innocence
- -> acquaintedness played a role, but no difference between romantic or non-romantic
