Steps of the cognitive interview

• Report everything

  • Encourage the reporting of every single detail even if witnesses don’t think it’s necessary
  • Memories are connected with one another so recollection of one may cue many more
  • Small pieces of info can be put together over many witnesses to see what happened
• Reinstate context

  • Witnesses encouraged to recreate the physical and psychological environment of the incident (e.g sights, sounds, how they felt etc.)
  • The aim is to make memories accessible through contextual and emotional cues to aid retrieval
• Change the order

  • Recall alternative timelines (e.g reversing the order)
  • Recollection is influenced by primary and recency effect and schemas
  • If recall happens backwards it prevents your pre - existing schemas and can verify accuracy
• Change perspective

  • Witnesses are asked to recall from multiple perspectives (e.g how it would appear to other witnesses, the victim, the suspect)
  • This disrupts the effect schemas have on recall