cognitive interview

• The cognitive interview is a method of interviewing eyewitnesses, used in police investigations, to help to retrieve more accurate memories
• stages of the cognitive interview

  1. mental reinstatement of og context 

  • The interviewer encourages them to mentally recreate the original scene of the crime or incident,thinking about what the environment and their emotions were like.
  • This uses (contextual) cues to make memories more accessible
• stage 2-report everything 

  • They are encouraged to free recall every single detail they can remember about the event without leaving out anything,even if it seems irrelevant
  • small memories can trigger other important one and to gain as much info as possible then small details can be pieced together to make a clearer picture.
• 3. change order

  • recalling the event in a different chronological order eg. asking them to recall it backwards
  • Prevents pre existing schema from influencing what you recall
• .change perspective -

  • then asked to recall from multiple perspectives such as from the point of view of other witnesses-
  • to again disrupt the effect of expectations and schemas have on recall
  • and to help uncover details that might have been overlooked from the witness's initial perspective
• • Fisher et al (1987) developed additional elements to the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction.
  • For example, the interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it.
  • The enhanced CI also includes ideas such as reducing anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly, asking open ended questions
• • One strength of this method is that it has a high effectiveness particularly in older witness. Stereotypes of elders memories that it declines dramatically with age can often lead them to be cautious or hold back information
  • the stress on giving every single detail overcomes this problem and means you are more likely to be able to gather solid and accurate evidence form people of all ages.
  • Fisher found that the cognitive interview gave a larger quantity of information and created a clear picture for the police of what happened compared with standard interview
  • +counter however the advantage of ci instead of si in younger people av age 22yrs was much less  
• Another limitation is that there are issues with police forces being able to correctly apply these methods due to the time it takes up, which would undermine its effectiveness. For example the process itself can be extremely time consuming due to letting them recall until they are totally finished therefore many prefer to interview them until the have found out the minimum amount of information which is required. Additionally the training to be able to carry it out is also a lengthy process and researchers have found that most have only been able to give a few hours which means they don't have the correct training to deliver it effectively (kebbell and wagstaff)
• One limitation of the cognitive interview is that it increasing the quantity of the information given may also compromise the quality.  

  Konkehn found an 81% increase in correct information but also a 61% increase in incorrect information. This suggest that this way of interviewing may not be as helpful in finding accurate information as first suggested. Incorrect information is useless in the bigger picture of the event for the police and could end up in misleading the information, meaning criminals are able to cause more damage.