Cognitive Interview improving accuracy of EWT

• The standard police interview, revolves around the interviewer rather than the witness and the interviewer does most of the talking which can lead to them asking leading questions.
• The cognitive interview takes longer and requires specially trained officers, it is made of 4 distinct components.
• The mental reinstatement of original context,this helps to create a memory of the environment by picturing the environment and what the weather was like. It aims to make the memories more accessible through appropriate contextual and emotional cues.
• Report everything, the witness is encouraged to talk about every detail and leave nothing out. Some may hold back on details as they believe they lack importance. Recollection of small details may cue other memories.
• Change order,this is when the witness is asked to look through the timeline in and alternative way. e,g reversing the order of events recollection through schemas and it also reduces schemas of other events interfering with this one.
• Schema is a packet of information we have about something.
• Change perspective how it would have looked to someone (another witness) present at the event. Again disrupts the effect schemas have on recall.
• Real world application of the effectiveness of the cognitive interview is difficult to establish because the CI is often more than one procedure. For example,Thames Valley Police use a version of the CI that doesn't include the 'changing perspective' component. Other police forces that use the CI have tended to only use the 'reinstate context' and 'report everything' component. This means that it is hard to establish the overall effectiveness of the technique when using all components. Therefore, the CI isn't a valid technique for improving accuracy of EWT.
• However, some police officers report problems when using the CI. Kebell and Wagstaff found that the CI takes more time than available and prefers to use deliberate strategies. This suggests that it is not very efficient and wastes a lot of time. Therefore, the CI can be seen as an invalid method of improving the accuracy of EWT.
• There is research to support the effectiveness of the CI. Konnken et al 1999 conducted a meta-analysis and found and increase of 34% in the amount of correct information compared to the SPI techniques. This suggests that the CI has high external reliability. Therefore, the CI is a valid method of imptoving accuracy of EWT.