the cognitive interview

• cognitive interview

  this is a police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information
• the cognitive interview - why is it important?

  • improving effectiveness of questioning witnesses in police interviews
  • apply findings of psychological findings to this area
• four main cognitive interview techniques

  1. reinstatement of context
  2. report everything
  3. change order
  4. change perspective
• 1. reinstatement of context

  The interviewer encourages to mentally recreate the exact environment of the event. The aim is to make memories accessible. they need cues in order to retrieve memories.
• 2. report everything

  interviewer reports every detail of event, even if details seem irrelevant. memories are interconnected so that the recollection of one item will act as a cue in order to retrieve memories
• 3. change order

  The interviewer may try alternative ways through a timeline of the incident. The rationale is that our recollections are influenced by schemas.
• 4. change perspective

  interviewee asked to recall incident from multiple perspective. this is done to disrupt the effect schemas have on recall.
• Fisher and Geiselman (1992)

  reviewed memory literature - people remember things better if they are provided with retrieval cues. the technique they devised has 4 components.
• the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI)

  Fisher et al (1987) developed some additional elements to the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction.
• the ECI includes:

  • interviewer does not distract the witness with unnecessary interruptions or distractions
  • witness controls the flow of information
  • ask open ended questions
  • ask the witness to speak slowly
  • participants are reminded not to guess and use the '' i dont know'' option when necessary
  • reduce anxiety for witness
• how does the ECI technique work?

  • the witness is asked open ended questions on neutral topics
  • context reinstatement
  • the witness will recall events freely and asked to report everything
  • the interviewer will then ask for information which requires the witness to concentrate on details such as the person's face