Cognitive Interview

• What is Cognitive Interview?

  A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime:

  • It uses techniques that encourage witnesses’ to a crime to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.

  Created by Fisher and Geiselman (1992) – used techniques based on psychological insights into how memory works.
• Aim

  • Improve the effectiveness of interviewers when questioning witnesses.
  • Apply the results of psychological research which showed that memory is not like a video camera but an active process.
• 4 Stages:

  1.Report everything - Report every detail you can, even if they seem irrelevant

  2.Reinstate the context - Recall the scene, the weather, what you were thinking/feeling

  3.Reverse the order - Describe the event in reverse order

  4.Change perspective - Describe the event as it would have been seen from different viewpoints
• AO3

  • Research SUPPORT into effectiveness of cognitive interview 

  Kohnken et al (1999)

  • meta-analysis of 50 studies
  • Found on average a 34% increase in amount of correct information generated in CI

  = each individual element of CI is equally valuable

  BUT most of the sample were university students
• AO3

  • Research SUPPORT into effectiveness of cognitive interview 

  Milne and Bull (2002)

  • Found that when they used a combination of “report everything” and “mental reinstatement”, participants’ recall was significantly higher.

  = real practice benefit to the police of using the enhanced version of CI

  BUT still in a laboratory (artificial)
• AO3 - Individual Differences

  Mello and Fisher (1996)

  When CI and normal interview techniques were tested on both older adults’ (72 years) and younger adults’ (22 years) memory, CI was better for both.

  BUT was more significant an advantage for the elderly.
• AO3 - Limitations

  Time-consuming

  Police personnel have to be trained and this can be expensive and time consuming.

  Police are reluctant to use this technique because it takes more time than the standard police interview.

  Unlikely that the “proper” version of the CI is actually used.
• AO3 - Limitations

  • Unreliable because of variations of CI
  • Produces an increase in inaccurate information (Irrelevant information)