improving the accuracy of EWT

• what is the established method of police questioning

  the police usually use the standard police interview
• what did Fisher and Geiselman argue

  EWT could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses
• what did Fisher and Geiselman recommend

  that these techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works and called these techniques the cognitive interview
• what are the 4 steps of the cognitive interview

  • report everything
  • reinstate the context
  • reverse the order
  • change perspective
• what is the report everything step

  • witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may not seen relevant or the witness doesn't feel confident about it
  • this is because even seemingly trivial details may be important and moreover, they trigger other important memories
  • it is free recall - no interruptions
• why is free recall used in the report everything step

  no interruption prevents disruption to the train of thought
• what is the reinstate the context stage 


  • the witness should return to the original crime scene 'in their minds' and imagine the environment such as what the weather (context cue) was like, what they could see, and their emotions at the time (state cue)
• why is reinstating the context useful in improving accurate recall

  by giving them context cues will allow the ps to recall events or details they may have missed and helps to aid recall
• what is the reverse the order step

  • events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence
  • for example from the final point back to the beginning or from he middle to the beginning
• how does reversing the order improve the order

  going backwards in your memory is more difficult and requires more attention to detail and therefore improves recall and prevents missed detail and dishonesty
• what is the change perspective step

  • witnesses should recall the incident from other people's perspectives
  • for example how it would have appeared to other witnesses to the perpetrator
• how does changing perspectives improve recall

  it removes personal bias which removes dishonesty and your judgment and biased which improves recall
• what is one strength of cognitive interviews (research evidence)

  P - a strength is that there is research evidence to support the effectiveness of the CI

  E - a meta analysis which combined data from 55 studies comparing CI with the standard police interview has been conducted

  E - the results showed that the CI produced an average of 41% more correct infomation than the standard interview

  L - this shows that the CI is effective in helping witnesses recall infomation that is available but not accessible
• what is a limitation of the cognitive interview (time consuming)


  P - a limitation of the CI is that it may be time consuming

  E - one technique of CI is report everything which allows the eye witness to free recall all the events they saw occur. In this technique interruption is not allowed and therefore eye witnesses can talk for extremely long period of time

  E - Kebbet and Wagstaff (1997) points out that the CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a sew hours of training

  L - this suggests that it is unlikely that the full version of the CI is actually used, which may explain why police have not been improved by it
• what is a limitation of the cognitive interview (useful)

  P - one limitation of the CI is that some elements of the CI are more useful than others

  E - Milne and Bull (2002) found that each individual element of CI was equally valuable, producing more infomation than the standard police interview

  E - they also found that a combination of report everything and context reinstitution produce better recall than any of the other techniques individually

  L -this suggests at least 2 elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eye witnesses even if the full CI isn't used
• what dose the enhanced cognitive interview

  deals with some of the criticisms of the cognitive interview
• why suggested the enhanced cognitive interview

  Fisher et al (1987)
• what did Fisher suggest

  an amened version of the CI know as the ECI that seeks to build a trusting relationship between interviewer and witness and improve the quality of communication between the 2
• what do the 7 important features of the ECI focus on

  focusing on the social dynamics of the interaction
• what are the 7 extra features of the ECI

  • interviewer need to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it
  • reducing anxiety is witnesses
  • interviewers not distracting the witness with unnecessary interruptions/questions getting the witness to speak slowly
  • getting the witness to speak slowly
  • asking open-ended questions
  • the witness controlling the flow if infomation
  • ps being reminded not to guess and to use the 'don't know' option when necessary, in order to reduce false memories