Week 4: Eyewitness Recall & Interviewing

Question 1

What is an important thing to note regarding memory?

Answer 1

What people know and what they report isn’t always the same thing

Question 2

What are the 3 key problems in interviewing settings?

Answer 2

1. Witness expectations - problematic expectations re their role leads them to passive and only respond to questions asked (we want witness to volunteer the information they have)
2. Interviewer expectations - problematic beliefs re the information that people will be able to provide and recall (memory function) - unrealistic expectations
3. Lack of good standardised techniques

Question 3

Why was the cognitive interview developed?

Answer 3

Was developed to provide a standardised procedure for effective interviewing

Based on core psychological principles of memory and effective communication

Is now the building block for what we know as common best practice

Question 4

Recall memory is..

Answer 4

Reconstructive

How you ask questions affects the answer you get

Question 5

What is the cognitive interview designed to do?

Answer 5

• Assist retrieval
• Optimise reporting of information

Both based on the understanding of memory functioning and social dynamics

Question 6

Reinstatement of context (aiding retrieval)?

Answer 6

Aids retrieval
Scuba divers (Godden and Baddeley)
Might not want to go back to scene of crime, may be too traumatic but there may be ways to mentally reinstate context - think about environment, how they interacted with the environment. Were there smells etc…
Helps to cue and retrieve additional aspects of memory

Question 7

Multiple and varied retrieval attempts (aiding retrieval)?

Answer 7

When report an experience, they do so in a chronological way - this is just one way to tell a story.
If we can get people to tell in eg. reverse chronological order, varies to way we try to access things from memory. - activate different nodes in memory network so we might activate additional things that we originally wouldn’t

Activating and strengthening multiple retrieval paths is a good way to aid retrieval

Question 8

Limited mental resources (aiding retrieval)?

Answer 8

We only have so many cognitive resources to deploy at any given time across all of the tasks that require our attention.
If we want witnesses to be devoting majority of resources they have to retrieving, evaluating and optimally reporting information - we want to free up as much of their cognitive resources as possible for this task

• Reduce distractions: conduct interview in quiet room
• Avoid interruptions: external people and the interviewer - break train of thought or shift attention, adds to cognitive load
• Papers looking at if witnesses closing their eyes has an effect - reduce visual distractions. Vision is our primary source of information about environment - reduce distractions through eye closure

Question 9

Active witness participation (optimising reporting)?

Answer 9

We need active participation - they know what happened, they experienced it so they have all of the information
The interviewer DOES NOT
- this is why the witness needs to be the one driving the interactions
- creating an environment for them to tell their story

BUT witnesses often wait to be prompted instead of being active - assume authoritative figure will drive interaction and their job is to solely answer questions their asked

Should encourage witness to tell their story and give them a chance to do so

Question 10

Crime relevant information?

Answer 10

It is true that the interviewer has the best sense of what information is relevant to the information

Whilst permitting as much free reign as possible and encouraging the witness to tell their story in their own way - does need to guide to more relevant bits to the story (closed questions or prompts)
- keep interview on track to provide useful and relevant information

Question 11

Promoting detailed responses?

Answer 11

Unwilling to provide vague information probably because they perceive it to be relatively uninformative and perhaps unhelpful

Interviewer has to recollaborate the witnesses expectations and let them know to give as much detail as can remember and that it will be useful (don’t edit responses)
Interviewer can then sort through all information and determine what is useful

Question 12

Non-verbal responding?

Answer 12

Verbal isn’t the only way to convey information - especially information is difficult to put into words and articulate. Might benefit from giving information in non-verbal ways
E.g. Acting something out, drawing something

Question 13

What are the two benefits of drawing to aid recall?

Answer 13

1. Can get a lot of information in a very simple drawing - things that might not be articulated by someone providing a verbal account. A lot can be conveyed in a very simple drawing that might not pop up in a verbal description because your’e rushing to get all ideas out within a verbal code
2. Can serve as a retrieval cue - as you’re drawing out the environment and you start to think of spatial relationships between things, it is possible that it will cue additional details

Question 14

What are the 5 stages of the cognitive interview?

Answer 14

• Introduction/rapport building - make them feel comfortable, put them in a state of mind where they feel okay to provide information - also correct problematic assumptions - setting expectations so can provide…
• Open ended narrative
• Probing - for additional details once they have provided their initial account can start to dig deeper into things they have mentioned - not suggesting anything/trying to contaminate memory but trying to probe for additional details
• Review - need to correct witness assumptions and make sure we have a reliable account - go back over events as described by the witness but need to let witness know to correct them if they’re wrong or have misunderstood something - need to feel comfortable to correct if something is wrong
• Closing - make sure they feel comfortable leaving the environment and know that they were appreciated - feeling comfortable to get back into touch if they remember anything else

Question 15

Is the CI a formula?

Answer 15

No it is a toolbox - collection of recall and reporting tools that can be employed as appropriate

Question 16

What are the commonly seen experiments involving the CI?

Answer 16

Basic methodology

• participants are typically shown a non-violent video and with hours or days delays, they will get people back in to interview them
• Compare CI to control groups
• or to a structured interview - structure but do not include thinks that enhance reporting etc

Question 17

What are the general findings of the CI in empirical evaluations?

Answer 17

Enhanced CI elicits more correct information than standard interview - increases the number of correct details by approx. 50-60%

Also leads to interviewers retaining more information than standard interviews - approx. 40%

Advantage holds for person, place, and event descriptions - broad memory benefits

Question 18

How much more information do detectives that have CI training elicit (field studies)?

Answer 18

60% more information

Nearly all of this information (95%) can be determined to be accurate based on what we already know from scene of crime or if not certain, it is corroborated to be as it aligns with other things

Question 19

What does the CI decrease?

Answer 19

Number of Q’s/leading Q’s asked

Question 20

What does the CI increase?

Answer 20

The proportion of open questions
Number of pauses (give witness time to try and remember any additional details - gain in amount of info)

More details and accurate details!!

Question 21

What are some limitations to the CI?

Answer 21

• Uncooperative witnesses: cannot make people talk - will help people who want to cooperate to produce the best info
• Only useful early on: once witness has provided an initial report and especially once they have rehearsed this, it will become their narrative - will then stay consistent
• Time consuming & hard work: takes a lot of cognitive effort - they need to tailor interview based on what witness reports - what have they said and what can they probe from them

Question 22

When can’t we do the CI?

Answer 22

When there are many people around the scene of the crime and any of them can know something - CI administration takes training so cannot interview heaps of people at once

Question 23

The self-administered interview (SAI)?

Answer 23

A booklet that witnesses can work through at their own pace - each page includes prompts that reflect the basic principles of the CI (eg. drawing something, reverse chronological order)

• can give out heaps at the scene
• cost effective
• can then determine which witnesses they want to call in for another interview

Question 24

Does the SAI actually work?

Answer 24

When compared to free recall:

- SAI elicits more information with no cost to to accuracy

Question 25

Delay and the SAI?

Answer 25

All witnesses at crime of scene, some completed SAI straight after the event, some didn’t. When came back in a week later, those who completed SAI recalled more info a week later than those who hadn’t

• Helps to preserve information for a later interview so by the time you can carry out a more structured interview, the witness is better at retrieving information from memory when done SAI

Question 26

Are multiple perpetrator crimes (MPC’s) common?

Answer 26

Yes they are

Question 27

What problem do MPC’s pose?

Answer 27

May admit being present at crime but dispute what they actually did - ‘i was there but i didn’t do it, they did’. This is a problem because to prosecute a perpetrator you need to be able to actually link them to specific actions - affects charges and sentences

Question 28

What happens if memory errors occur in witnesses?

Answer 28

If other evidence such as CCTV contradict a witness, it may discredit them as a reliable witness
- Errors are a natural part of these stressful situations but they do pose problems

Should not be considered an unreliable witness

Question 29

What is a timeline technique?

Answer 29

Physical timeline - eg. strip of cardboard on table
Can attach report cards (action cards and person description cards) to this timeline

Can start anywhere and rearrange as needed

Question 30

Is the timeline technique effective?

Answer 30

• Yes
  Increase in correct information recalled compared to other techniques (free recall included) - record card is similar to timeline technique and gave similar but not quite as strong results
• Significantly reduced sequencing errors

Question 31

How can the timeline technique be used for multiple perpetrator crimes?

Answer 31

Separating out who did what and when

Question 32

What are the 3 distinct ways that we can conceptualise memory?

Answer 32

All related but are different

1. Stored information
2. Retrieved information
3. Output on a memory test : what we report when asked a question

Question 33

What is strategic regulation of memory outputs?

Answer 33

When asked a question we don’t just regurgitate an answer that contains everything that we know about a topic - there is a strategic filtration process between what we bring to mind and what we choose to tell someone

Question 34

What are the 2 processes involved in the strategic regulation of memory outputs?

Answer 34

1. Monitoring process: before we answer a question we are likely to asses the reliability of our answer
2. Control processes: once we have done this we determine if we will report it or not and how much detail we will report

Question 35

Monitoring and control processes (flow-chart thing)?

Answer 35

INPUT QUESTION - request for information
MEMORY SEARCH - engage in this to see if they can retrieve any of the requested information
Hopefully will retrieve the BEST CANDIDATE ANSWER - strongest memory they have
Then engage in a MONITORING PROCESS - develop a sense of confidence in the probable accuracy in this info (do this automatically)
We then compare this probable accuracy to a threshold level that determines if we are going to report this information or not.. where does this threshold come from?

Around the same time that all of this is happening, we have another process at play - we develop a response criteria - reflects context specific expectations and task demands and payoffs (instructions, incentives, beliefs influence)

We then volunteer this information or withhold it - if not, we go back to look for another best candidate answer

Question 36

What affects confidence of own retrieved information?

Answer 36

Reliance on heuristics - if we take ages to think about what the perpetrator was wearing, we may have less confidence in this answer

Fluency or the ease in which something comes to mind - will be more confident

Question 37

What are the 2 key control processes that ultimately determine what the witnesses report?

Answer 37

1. Regulating report option - they have the ability to decide what to report - can choose to just withhold things (all or nothing)
2. Regulating grain size (or precision) - if confident can give detailed report, if not confident or not as strong of a memory probably will give a vague response

Balance between being informative and being accurate

Question 38

What are report option and grain size influenced by?

Answer 38

Confidence (heuristics)

Constraints imposed at test by interviewer (how we frame questions)

Question 39

What grain size is the typical information given in eyewitness settings?

Answer 39

Tend not to give coarse grain info - perception that not useful

Question 40

What are some key issues with interviewing characteristics and timing on recall?

Answer 40

Interview format (e.g. closed vs. open Q’s)

Number of interviews (what is omitted in first interview typically doesn’t resurface - grain size and report option vary across interviews eg. less detail as memory declines

Delay to first interview and intervals between interviews - effective early interview crucial for activating and maintaining trace strength

Question 41

Closed interviews?

Answer 41

Increase reporting, decrease reliability
- suggestiveness, prompting, guessing

OPEN INTERVIEWS ARE RECOMMENDED PRACTICE - putting the witness in charge

Question 42

Testimonial consistency?

Answer 42

Witnesses are usually interviewed over a number of occasions
- at scene, follow up, if charge prosecutor will have meeting with attorney, in court

Over these multiple interviews, testimonial inconsistencies are highly likely - contradict themselves, or they will give new details that weren’t initially mentioned

Most of us are not likely to be convinced by witnesses who do these things

Question 43

Inconsistency is considered to be….

Answer 43

A hallmark of inaccuracy

Question 44

What % of witnesses produce contradictions?

Answer 44

97% - almost all!!

But just because they may contradict themselves on one detail, doesn’t tell us about their global accuracy or reliability of their memory on other details

Question 45

What might reminiscence be a reflection of and why?

Answer 45

Maybe reflecting external influences instead of memory

Seems to violate basic principles of memory as memory weakens overtime and from this we should recall less over time

Question 46

How many witnesses display reminiscence?

Answer 46

98%

Question 47

Why might reminiscence occur?

Answer 47

Throughout multiple interviews with different types of questions and probing etc, likely to cue additional detail

Studies have shown that these details can have high accuracy