Cognitive interviews

• Who created the cognitive interview?

  Geiselman et al (1984)
• What is the background of the cognitive interview?

  It was designed to be used in police investigations. Standard police interviews might result in important information being left out of a witness statement. The aim is to elicit as much information as possible using memory retrival techniques.
• What are the techniques of cognitive interview?

  1. Recreating the context

  2. Report every detail

  3. Recall the event in different orders

  4. Changing perspectives
• Explain recreating the context

  - Putting yourself into the scene of the crime.

  - Try to remember what it was like

  - Triggers the encoding specificity principle
• Explain reporting every detail

  - Tell the interviewer detail you can remember

  - Additional information that may have been forgotten
• Explain recalling the event in different orders

  - Trying to describe the event in reverse order will disrupt the negative influence of schemas.
• Explain changing perspectives


  - Try to recall events from the standpoint of another person, which helps disrupt the negative influences of schemas.
• Explain Geiselman's study


  Showed 89 students police training videos and were interviewed 48 hours later. PPS who were intervieved by cognitive interviews gave significantly more detail and accuracy than standard interviews.
• Explain fishers study


  trained a group of detectives in Florida to use cognitive interviews. Then assessed their performance. The information gain was over 47%.
• Explain Holidays study


  He developed a version of cognitive interviews for children. He used it in a lab study where children were shown a video of a birthday party and then questionned about it.

  CI gained significantly more correct information.
• Explain enhanced cognitive interviews

  CI was enhanced to focus on social dynamics - reducing anxiety and minimising distractions.
• Explain issues with False recall

  Kohnken (1999) conducted a meta analysis and found enhanced CI significantly improved recall in comparison to standard police interviews.

  Unfortunately there was a 60% increase in false recall so police ned to be careful on how they handle information.