The cognitive interview Flashcards
What is report everything?
The witness is encouraged to include every single detail of the event even if they seem irrelevant
What is the importance of report everything?
Witnesses may not realise that some details are important and these may trigger other important memories
What is reinstate the context?
The witness should return to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment (e.g. weather, what they could see) and their emotions
What is reverse the order?
Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, e.g. in the reverse
What is the importance of reinstate the context?
Recalling how you felt and the environment could entrance recall (context/state dependant forgetting)
What is the importance of reverse the order?
This is to prevent people from reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual event and it also is harder the lie when you have to explain dishonesty.
What is change the perspective?
Witnesses should recall the incident from the perspective of someone else e.g. another witness or the perpetrator
What is the importance of change the perspective?
It disrupts the effect of expectations and and schema on the recall and this generates expectations of what would happen and this is what we rely on
What is the enhanced cognitive interview?
It seeks to build a trusting relationship between interviewer and witness to improve the quality of communication, reduces the eyewitness anxiety and minimising distractions
What are advantages of the CI?
The is no opportunity for false memories to be created compared to traditional interviews, Fisher and Geiselmen found that the CI resulted in 25-25% better recall than standard and Kohnken studied the two types of interviews and concluded that the CI generates more correct details than the standard interviews
What are disadvantages of the CI?
The CI is more difficult to conduct than a standard interview as it takes longer and requires more training so it only effective for cooperative eyewitnesses, Kohnken found there was an increase in inaccurate information recalled so quantity was favoured over quality and Milne and Bull’s experiment released ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ were more useful.
