understanding the offender: cognitive interview

Question 1

what information is collected relating to an offender?

Answer 1

• info before offender is caught
• includes how interviewing of witnesses is carried out, where cognitive interviewing and ethical interviewing techniques come in

Question 2

what is cognitive interviewing/ethical interviewing?

Answer 2

• getting info after offender becomes ‘offender’ which is after sentencing
• that is where case formulation comes in

Question 3

what is a cognitive interview?

Answer 3

• questioning technique used by police and forensic psychologists
• aim is to improve testimony so that it is reliable and not affected by how interview is done, e.g. leading questions

Question 4

what is the background of cognitive interviewing?

Answer 4

can be used for how psychology has changed over time (issues and debates)
- developed by Geiselman et al 1984 with intention of improving police interviewing techniques
- Geiselman focused on improving accuracy of EWT
- ideas behind this include idea that memory is reconstructed and unlike tape-recorder, as Bartlett 1932 illustrated, and idea that there could, therefore, be confabulation (adding to what happened so it makes sense for individual)
- cognitive interview links what is known from psychology about how memory works with practical ideas about police interviews, aiming to develop more effective interviewing techniques with regard to witness testimony and offender accounts

Question 5

what was a police interview like before cognitive interviewing?

Answer 5

police standard interview
- short attempt to establish report
- direct question ‘tell me what happened’
- ‘outburst’ of crime-related facts from witness
- interruptions where interviewer asks short direct questions e.g. ‘how tall was he’
- leading questions ‘he was wearing a red shirt, wasn’t he?’
- interviewer dominated interview with replies being rather brief, so witness stays passive, waiting to answer questions

Question 6

what are the four main techniques used within cognitive interviewing?

Answer 6

1. reinstate context at time of event
2. report everything
3. change order in which event is recalled
4. change perspective

Question 7

reinstate context at time of event

Answer 7

• reinstate context at time of event encouraging witnesses to recall specific cues e.g. how they fell, weather, smells, time of day etc.
• helps to put person back in time to incident and may improve recall accuracy
• supports cue-dependent recall

Question 8

report everything

Answer 8

• report everything
• allowing witness to freely recall narrative of situation gains initial account, without interruption
• there is then scope for interviewer to ask further questions to clarify significant moments in turn for more detail
• witnesses may exclude details they feel are irrelevant/trivial, especially if they do not fit into their existing schemas for that type of event
• unimportant detail can act as cue for key info about event

Question 9

change order in which event is recalled

Answer 9

• change order in which event in recalled
• as we tend to remember situations in order in which they happened, we are more likely to reconstruct story and draw on existing schema
• can be inaccurate as a result
• recalling events in reverse order can help person to avoid skipping over info that they have taken for granted, as it interrupts schema activation - what we would expect to see - and can help to prevent story formation

Question 10

change perspective

Answer 10

• change perspective trying to adopt viewpoint of different witness
• e.g. prominent character in incident can encourage recall of events that may otherwise be omitted
• cueing person to specifically focus on different element of situation can increase accurate recall
• has to be made clear that witness only reports what they know, and not what they think other person would have seen

Question 11

3 comparisons between cognitive interviewing and police standard interview

Answer 11

• police standard interview consist of leading questions however cognitive interviewing makes witnesses report everything
• police standard interview asks questions (interruptions) and in control while cognitive interviewing lets witnesses explain first, then ask questions
• cognitive interviewing is based on psychological research (memory) and not what someone thinks is best

Question 12

strength of cognitive interviewing

Answer 12

• aims to get as much detail as possible from witness using strategies such as starting from different place in ‘story’
• strength as police may not know value of different details at time of interview so being thorough is important
• also finding some detail may trigger other detail, so it is a useful technique for aiding recall

Question 13

strength of cognitive interviewing (F et al)

Answer 13

Fisher et al 1989
- trained police detectives in florida in use of cognitive interview, and compared interview performance before and after training
- after training, detectives gained as much as 47% more useful info from witnesses to real crimes compared with when they had been using standard interview techniques

Question 14

strength of cognitive interviewing (H)

Answer 14

Holiday 2012
- found more correct details from both older and younger adults using cognitive interview compared with standard interview techniques

Question 15

strength of cognitive interviewing (G et al)

Answer 15

Geiselman et al 1985
- compared their cognitive interview with standard interview
- results showed significant increase in number of correct items recalled using cognitive interview, and small increase in number of confabulated items

Question 16

weaknesses of cognitive interviewing

Answer 16

• specialist training and expertise required which can be costly to police divisions who want to use cognitive interview technique e.g. staff training
• asking witness to consider another perspective might result in speculation (guessing), despite instructions not to
• what is planned in theory might not be easy to do in practice. e.g. police might find it hard not to focus on what they want to know first. cognitive interview relies on building rapport, giving control to interviewee (EW) and letting them lead interview
• even with training it is difficult to avoid using leading questions if interviewer e.g. police officer knows things about event. asking only open questions takes a lot of practice