cognitive interview

• what is the cognitive interview ?

  method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories.

  1. report everything
  2. reinstate the context
  3. reverse the order
  4. change perspective
• what support is there for the effectiveness of CI?

  Meta analysis by Kohnken combined data from 55 studies comparing the CI with the standard police interview. The CI gave an 41% increase in accuracy. This shows it is an effective technique in helping recall information that is stored on Memory but not immediately accessible. 
• what is a limitation for CI?

  He also found an increase in the amount of inaccurate information. CI may sacrifice the quality of EWT in favour of quantity. This means police officers should treat eyewitnesses evidence from CI with caution. 
• how are some elements of the CI more important?

  Milne and Bill found that each of the 4 the techniques produced more information than the standard police interview but they also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate context produced better recall than any other combination. This confirmed police  officers' suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others. This casts out some doubt on the credibility of the overall cognitive interview 
• how is the CI not good ?

  Police may be reluctant to use it because it takes more time and training than the standard police interview. The CI requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours . This suggests that the complete CI as it exists is not a realistic method for police officers to use and it  might be better to focus on just a few key elements