Cognitive interview

• Basic police interview:

  • an interviewer does most of the talking
  • specific, closed questions
  • witnesses discouraged from adding extra information
  • predetermined questions
  • unintentionally leading questions
• 4 stages of the cognitive interview: Geiselman

  1.Context reinstatement - witness asked to mentally recreate the context of the event (state + context dependent forgetting)

  2. Change the sequences - witness asked to recall events in a different order

  3. Change in perspectives - the witness is asked to recall the events in different perspectives

  4. Report everything - witnesses are asked to report every single detail that they remember
• Enhanced cognitive interview:

  Fisher - Focused on the social dynamics of interviews

  • eye contact
  • speaking slowly
  • open-ended questions
  • minimising distractions
• Strength of the cognitive interview: Geilsman and Fisher

  • participants viewed a video of a violent crime
  • 48 hours later asked questions using cognitive interview with 3 techniques
  • lab experiment, independent group design, volunteer sample

  Results: number of correctly recalled facts was higher for cognitive interview compared to the other technique

  CI: 41 correct

  SI: 29 correct
• Limitation of the cognitive interview:

  -Milne and Bull

  • all 4 elements of the cognitive interview produce more accurate recall from a witness compared to the standard interview
  • However, context reinstatement and report everything are the most successful combination together
  • This is inline with the attitudes of police officers
• Limitation of the cognitive interview: practical issues:

  • time consuming and expensive training
  • some police forces don't have resources for specific training