Improving Eyewitness Testimony - The Cognitive Interview

• The cognitive interview:

  • R.E. Geiselman was a cognitive psychologist who wanted to use his knowledge of memory to improve the ways that police interview eyewitnesses
  • he developed what is known as the cognitive interview. This includes 4 main questioning techniques to try and improve the volume and accuracy of information recalled by eyewitnesses
• The cognitive interview:

  C - context reinstatement;

  • example - "please imagine you are back at the scene of the crime and then tell us how you feel"
  • this boosts access to retrieval cues that were present at the time of encoding (the crime itself)

  R - report every detail;

  • example - "please report everything that you saw on that morning, regardless of whether you think it is important"
  • this boosts access to retrieval cues that were present at the time of encoding
• The cognitive interview:

  O - change the order;

  • example - "please report everything you remember, beginning with the end of the incident and then working backwards"
  • this disrupts any schemas that have been used to fill in any blanks and ensures the information given is more accurate

  P - change the perspective;

  • example - "can you report what you saw from a bird's eye perspective?"
  • this again disrupts the schema that the eyewitness may be relying on to fill in the blanks
• The enhanced cognitive interview:

  • this has then been tinkered with over the years and so the enhanced cognitive interview has been developed

  this uses the same principles but also trains the police officer to do the following;

  • establish eye contact
  • reduce the anxiety of the witness
  • ask the witness to speak slowly
  • ask open questions
  • witnesses are told not to guess any information and just admit if they do not remember a detail
• Evaluation of the cognitive interview:

  S - support for the cognitive interview - Kohnken's meta-analysis

  S - support for the cognitive interview - Fisher's field experiment

  W - some parts of the cognitive interview are more important than others - Milne and Bull

  W - the cognitive interview is time-consuming and expensive
• Support for the cognitive interview - Kohnken's meta-analysis (identify):

  • a strength of the cognitive interview is that there is evidence to support from Kohnken's meta-analysis
• Support for the cognitive interview - Kohnken's meta-analysis (explain):

  • Kohnken conducted a meta-analysis of 50 studies into the cognitive interview, finding that the enhanced cognitive interview gave consistently more accurate information (an 81% increase) than the standard police interview, although it also increased the amount of incorrect information (61%)
• Support for the cognitive interview - Kohnken's meta-analysis (conclusion):

  • this is important as it provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of the cognitive interview in generating more information from eyewitnesses adding validity to it
  • however, there is also an increase in inaccurate data, therefore only increasing volume of information
• Support for the cognitive interview - Fisher's field experiment (identify):

  • there is real world evidence to support the effectiveness of the cognitive interview
• Support for the cognitive interview - Fisher's field experiment (explain):

  • Fisher et al (1986) found that Florida police detectives trained in the cognitive interview collected 47% more information than before their training when they had been using the standard police interview and that the interviews lasted on average one minute longer than the standard interview
• Support for the cognitive interview - Fisher's field experiment (conclusion):

  • this is important because it provides evidence that the cognitive interview is effective in the real world
  • this field experiment used real life crimes and therefore is high in ecological validity
• Some parts of the cognitive interview are more important than others - Milne and Bull (identify):

  • a weakness of the cognitive interview is that not all of the features are as effective as each other
• Some parts of the cognitive interview are more important than others - Milne and Bull (explain):

  • Milne and Bull (2002) have found that the two most effective techniques are context reinstatement and report every detail
  • it was found that changing the order and changing the perspective were significantly less effective at increasing the amount of information from eyewitnesses
• Some parts of the cognitive interview are more important than others - Milne and Bull (conclusion):

  • this is important because it means that not all of the cognitive interview techniques may be worthwhile
  • it may be better to just ask the questions relating to context reinstatement and reporting every detail and not use valuable police time asking participants to change the order of events or change perspective
• The cognitive interview is time-consuming and expensive (identify):

  • a weakness of the cognitive interview is that it is seen as time-consuming and expensive by police forces
• The cognitive interview is time-consuming and expensive (explain):

  • the cognitive interview requires specialist training for police officers to attend 4 one-hour sessions on how to deliver the interview
  • furthermore, actually using the cognitive interview takes longer than a standard police interview as it requires establishing a rapport with eyewitnesses, calming them and asking them to report every detail and other additional questions (some of which aren't hugely effective, such as changing the perspective)
  • this means that it is time-consuming for the police and therefore extremely expensive for police forces, in comparison with the standard police interview
• The cognitive interview is time-consuming and expensive (conclusion):

  • this is important because this means that some police forces may not deem it worthwhile for less serious crimes when they do not have the time
  • this lowers the effectiveness of the cognitive interview in the real world