cognitive interviews

• report everything

  • every detail must be reported however unimportant it may seem
  • in case details have been overlooked
• context reinstatment

  • mentally recreate the environmental and personal context of the crime in the mind of the witness
  • this technique is linked to retrieval failure as context may provide cues
• recall in reverse order

  • encourage witnesses to recount the details of events in different orders moving backwards and forwards in time
  • this technique vertifies accuracy of the testimony
• recall from changed persepective

  • report the incident from a range of perspectives including those of other bystanders, or even the criminal themselves
  • promotes a more holistic view of the event
• uses of the cognitive interview to improve EWT

  • developed by fisher & geiselman (1992) to improve accuracy of EWT
  • designed to to used in police interviews
• supporting evidence - kohnken et al. (1999)

  • conducted a meta-analysis of 42 studies with over 2500 ppts
  • found the cognitive interview significantly increases the number of correctly recalled details compared to a standard interview
  • this means the use of cognitive interview is effective in improving EWT
• supporting evidence - milne and bull (2002)

  • found that each of the techniques were equally effective
  • combination of reporting and context reinstatement lead to significantly more correct recall than individual techniques by themselves
  • they found no effect of age group suggesting cognitive interview is effective for ages
  • this means the use of cognitive interview is effective in improving eyewitness testimony for all individuals
• not effective

  • the cognitive interview becomes less effective as time passes after the event
  • small increases in incorrect information being reported when this technique is used
  • this means the cognitive interview may not always be effective at improving EWT
• time consuming

  • takes longer than a standard interviews and needs specialist training of police officers
  • this means the use of the cognitive interview may nto always be used the most practical technique to use in real life