Improving EWT

• The cognitive interview is used
• 1 - Report Everything

  Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event

  Trivial memories are important and may trigger other memories of the event
• 2 - Mental reinstatement

  The witness should enter the original event ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment and their emotions

  This can act as context-dependant forgetting
• 3 - Change the order

  Events should also be recalled in different chronological order to the original sequence

  Prevents people reporting their expectations of what happened, rather than the actual events

  Also prevents dishonesty (Hard to produce an untruthful account when its reversed)
• 4 - Change Perspective

  Recall the incidence from other peoples perspective

  Disrupts the effect of expectations and schema on recall

  The schema you have of a particular setting generates expectations of what would have happened
• The enhanced cognitive interview adds further methods

  Open ended questions

  calming the witness

  Minimising distraction

  managing eye contact

  getting the witness to speak slowly
• Weaknesses

  The cognitive interview is time consuming - the police believe the CI takes much longer than the regular police interviews - the police don’t have time (eg a serial killer may be on the lose)

  The cognitive interview is expensive - The CI requires extensive training, which isn't affordable on the publics tax
• Strengths

  A meta analysis into the enhanced cognitive interview, cognitive interview and regular interviews

  More correct information was found through the cognitive interview than regular interviews

  However, there was also a 61% rise in incorrect info
• Could it work well with all witnesses

  Young children - not able to perspective change properly, may not be able to remember many details or change the order

  Older witnesses - may not trust their memory, therefore may benefit from the cognitive interview