A03

• S: Some elements of the full cognitive interview are useful?

  • Milne and Bull (02) found that each individual element of CI was equally valuable
  • However, they also found that a combination of 'report everything' and 'context reinstatement' produced better recall than any of the other techniques individually
  • So at least these 2 elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even if the full CI isn't used
• L: produces an increase in inaccurate information

  • The techniques of the CI aim to increase the amount of correct information recalled, but the recall of incorrect information may also be increased
  • Kohnken et al (99) found an 81% increase in correct info but also 61% increase in incorrect info (false positives) when the enhanced CI was compared to a standard interview
  • The increase in correct information implies that police should continue to use CI, but the results also suggest than police need to treat all information collected with caution
• S: support for the effectiveness of the enhance CI

  • A meta-analysis by Kohnken et al (99) combined data from 50 studies
  • The enhance CI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police
  • Studies like this indicate that there are real practical benefits to the police of using the enhanced version of the CI
• L: research may be unreliable because of variations of the CI

  • Studies of the effectiveness of the CI inevitably use slightly different techniques
  • Different researchers may use variations of the CI or enhanced CI and police forces evolve their own methods
  • This means it's difficult to draw conclusions about the CI in general
• L: it's time consuming

  • Police are reluctant to use CI because it takes much more time than the standard police interview, more time is needed to establish rapport with the witness to allow them to relax
  • Kebbell and Wagstaff (97) point out that the CI also requires special training and many forces haven't been able to provide more than a few hours
  • This means it's unlikely that the 'proper' version of the CI is actually used (which may explain why police haven't been than impressed by it)