Improving Accuracy of EWT

• Eyewitness testimony


  Traditional eyewitness testimony has limitations
• Psychological factors affecting eyewitness reliability

  • Anxiety
  • Misleading information
  • Post-event discussions
• Standard eyewitness interview approach


  1. Direct and closed-ended questioning

  2. Disregard for witness's mental chronology

  3. Frequent interruptions, preventing free sharing of experiences
• Observations from real police stations in Florida showed that the standard approach often involves the shortcomings listed
• Cognitive Interview Technique

  Developed by researchers Fisher and Geiselman to address flaws in traditional methods
• Cognitive Interview Technique

  1. Context Reinstatement

  2. Report Everything

  3. Changing Perspectives

  4. Recalling Events in Reverse Order
• Context Reinstatement

  • Witnesses are encouraged to mentally recreate the crime scene and their emotional state at the time, enhancing memory recall
• Report Everything

  • Witnesses are instructed to relay all memories, no matter how trivial they seem, to gather comprehensive information
• Changing Perspectives

  • Witnesses recount the event from different viewpoints (e.g., a bystander or the perpetrator) to challenge their own memory biases
• Recalling Events in Reverse Order

  • By altering the order of events during recall, this method helps prevent witnesses from falling into scripted or expected patterns of memory
• Enhanced Cognitive Interview

  1. Control over information flow

  2. Use of open-ended questions

  3. Minimizing interruptions
• Enhanced Cognitive Interview


  • Ensures witness comfort
  • Improves rapport between interviewer and witness
• Cognitive interview techniques


  Detectives trained in these techniques were able to extract 47% more information than before their training, and 63% more than those who did not receive training
• Cognitive interviews


  Increased the quantity of information recalled, but the accuracy of the information was comparable to that obtained through standard interviews
• Cognitive interview


  • Resource-intensive, requiring significant time for training and implementation
  • Less effective in certain scenarios, such as identifying suspects in lineups or from photographs
  • Modifications are necessary to adapt the technique for children, though a specialized version has shown effectiveness with younger age groups
• Cognitive interviews could strain law enforcement budgets due to the resource intensity