Improving accuracy of EWT - cognitive interview

• What did Fisher and Geiselman 1992 say? They argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved if police used better interview and techniques. These techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works.
• What are the four parts of cognitive interview? Report everything

  Reinstate the context

  Reverse the order

  Change perspective
• CI - 1. report everything: include every detail, even if it seems irrelevant or you lack confidence this is because trivial details may be vital and trigger other memories
• CI - 2. Reinstate the context: Return to the original crime in their mind and imagine the environment - context dependent forgetting
• CI - 3. Reverse the order: report the events in a different order. This prevents people reporting their expectations of how the event happened and prevents dishonesty.
• CI - 4. Change perspective: recall incident from another perspective

  disrupts the effect of expectations and effect of schema on recall

  schema for setting generates expectations
• who came up with enhanced cognitive interview? Fisher et al (1987)
• what is the enhanced cognitive interview? (Fisher et al) An advanced method of questioning witnesses that overcomes problems caused by inappropriate sequecing of questions.
• what did fisher et al add to the cognitive interview? elements of CI to focus on social dynamics of the interaction

  E.G interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and relinquish it
• strength - p - evidence for effectiveness of CI: E - meta analysis study Kohnken 1991 compared data from 55 studies with the CI and standard interview

  CI gave 41% increase in accurate info

  only 4 studies showed no difference

  T - CI helps witnesses recall information that is not immediately accessible
• counterpoint to the strength - evidence for effectiveness of CI: P - he also found an increase in inaccurate information

  E - issue in ECI which produced more incorrect details than the CI

  CI may sacrifice quality of EWT in favour of quantity

  T - police should treat EW evidence from CIs/EVIs with caution
• limitation - p - CI is more time consuming and requires more training: E - more time is needed to establish a rapport with a witness and allow them to speak

  requires special training

  forces don't have the resources to provide more than a few hours (kebbell and wagstaff 1997)

  T - suggests that the CI is not a realistic method for police to use and that it's better to focus on a few key parts
• limitation - not all of its elements are equally effective: E - Milne and Bali 2002 found that each of the 4 techniques alone produced more info than the standard police interview BUT found a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than other elements, confirming suspicions than parts of the CI are more useful than others