the cognitive interview Flashcards
introduction
Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman (1992) argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved i the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses. Fisher and Geiselman recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works, and called these techniques collectively the cognitive interview (Cl) to indicate its foundation in cognitive psychology. There are four main techniques that are used.
techniques used in the cognitive interview
- Report everything
Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it. Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories. - Reinstate the context
The witness should return to the original crime scene “in their mind’ and imagine the environment (such as what the weather was like, what they could see) and their emotions (such as whether they were happy or bored). This is related to context-dependent forgetting discussed on page 56. - Reverse the order
Events should be recalled in a different order from the original sequence, for example, from the final point back to the beginning, or from the middle to the beginning.
This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than reporting the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty (it’s harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it). - Change perspective
Witnesses should recall the incident from other peoples perspectives. For example, how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This again is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and also the effect of schema on recall. The schema you have for a particular setting (such as going into a shop) generate expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened.
questions in the cognitive interview
context-“I would like you to think back to that day. Try to get a clear picture in your mind. Think of the objects that were there, the colours, smells, sounds.
How were you feeling?”
everything-“Please tell me what happened on that day.
Start at the beginning; leave nothing out; I am interested in absolutely everything.”
different perspective-“Try to recall the incident from the perspective of another person involved.
Describe what he/she would have seen.”
reverse order-“I would like you to tell me what happened
backwards. I know it sounds hard, but start with the very last thing you remember?”
the enhanced cognitive interview
Fisher et al. (1987) developed some additional elements of the Cl to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction. For example, the interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it. The enhanced Cl also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions.
strength-research support for CI
One strength of the cognitive interview is evidence that it works.
For example, a meta-analysis by Günter Köhnken et al.
(1999) combined data from 55 studies comparing the Cl (and the ECI) with the standard police interview. The Cl gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview. Only four studies in the analysis showed no difference between the types of interview.
This shows that the Cl is an effective technique in helping witnesses to recall information that is stored in memory (available) but not immediately accessible.
counterpoint to support
Köhnken et al. also found an increase in the amount of inaccurate information recalled by participants. This was a particular issue in the ECl, which produced more incorrect details than the Cl. Cognitive interviews may sacrifice quality of EWT (i.e. accuracy) in favour of quantity (amount of details).
This means that police officers should treat eyewitness evidence from Cls/ECls with caution.
limitation-some elements may be more useful
One limitation of the original Cl is that not all of its elements are equally effective or useful.
Rebecca Milne and Ray Bull (2002) found that each of the four techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview. But they also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them. This confrmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the Cl are more useful than others.
This casts some doubt on the credibility of the overall
cognitive interview.
limitation-problems with the CI in practice
Another limitation is that police officers may be reluctant to use the Cl because it takes more time and training than the standard police interview.
For example, more time is needed to establish rapport with a witness and allow them to relax. The Cl also requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours (Kebbell and Wagstaff 1997).
This suggests that the complete Cl as it exists is not a realistic method for police officers to use and (as in the point above) it might be better to focus on just a few key elements.
