Cognitive interview

• How does it work? Context reinstatement

  Interviewee mentally reinstates the environmental and personal context of the incident.
• How does it work? Report everything

  Interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail even though it may seem irrelevant.
• How does it work? Change order


  Interviewer tries alternative ways through the timelines of the incident.
• How does it work? Change perspective

  Interviewee recalls from different perspectives, for example how it would have appeared to other witnesses, the victim etc...
• Psychology behind it: Context reinstatement


  Based on the principle of retrieval failure/ cue dependent forgetting that cues may trigger recall.
• Psychology behind it: Report everything


  Details may trigger other memories.
• Psychology behind it: Change order


  Reduces the possibility of being influenced by schema.
• Psychology behind it: Change perspective


  Reduces influence of schema
• How does CI differ from SPI?

  In a cognitive interview, questions are open to therefore maximise recall, improve memory with retrieval cues.

  In standard police interview, closed questions are used, witnesses are frequently interrupted, short answers, recall not maximised and they are bombarded with questions.