cognitive interview

• A cognitive interview is a police technique used to interview witness to a crime
• The 4 components of the cognitive interview are: report everything , resinate the context, change the order, change the perspective
• strength of using the cognitive interview - meta-analysis research has shown when the cognitive interview is used, there is a 41% increase in the accuracy of information given by the witness - suggesting it is an effective technique in helping witness recall
• enhanced cognitive interview -

  builds on the cognitive interview by including rapport tactics and managing the emotional wellbeing of the interviewee.
• reverse the order - events of the crime should be recalled in a different order from the original sequence - this prevents dishonesty as its harder to lie when event orders are changed - it also prevents people recalling their expectations of events as opposed to the real events
• report everything - witnesses are encouraged to include very detail of the crime even if it may not seem relevant or they are unsure
• reinstate the context - witness should return to original crime scene in their mind and think about the environment and how they felt - cues may help them trigger their memory
• change the perspective - witnesses should recall the incident from the perspectives of others such as another witness or the perpetrator, this is done to disrupt a persons usual schema of an environment
• enhanced cognitive interview - Fisher et al - developed additional elements of the cognitive interview, focusing on the social dynamics of a situation or interaction - also involves asking open-ended questions and working to reduce the witnesses anxiety
• limitation of the cognitive interview - expensive and time consuming - the process of conducting the interview is long as building rapport with the witness can take time - the training of police officers also takes a long time and costs money - this may suggest the that cognitive interview is not a realistic method that can be used
• limitation of cognitive interview - Bull & Milne - found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than the combination of all 4 elements or any other combinations of the elements. - the credibility of the technique may be questionable as evidence shows that not all elements help improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony