Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

• What is the Cognitive Interview?

  A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories
• What are the 4 main techniques in the Cognitive Interview?

  1. Reinstate the context
  2. Report everything
  3. Change the perspective
  4. Reverse the order
• Report Everything


  Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event even if it may seem irrelevant. Trivial details may be important and may trigger other important memories
• Reinstate the context


  The witness should return to the original crime scene ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment (such as what the weather was like and what they could see) and their emotions (whether they were happy or bored)
• Reverse the order


  Events should be recalled in a different order from the original sequence e.g from the end to the beginning or the middle to the beginning. This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event happened rather than reporting the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty (it’s harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it)
• Change the perspective


  Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives. How it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This disrupts the effect of expectations and the effect of schema on recall. The schema you have for a particular setting (such as going into a shop) generates expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened
• The enhanced cognitive interview

  • Developed some additional elements of the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction
  • The interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it
  • The enhanced CI also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions
• AO3: Research support for the effectiveness

  • Researcher tested the effectiveness of the cognitive interview compared to a standard police interview
  • Field experiment conducted on students that were asked about an intruder in the lecture theatre
  • Students interviewed using the cognitive interview were less susceptible to leading questions and less likely to have false memories than the other group
  • Provides clear support for the effectiveness of cognitive interview
• AO3: Supported by research into memory accuracy

  • Components of cognitive interview were created based on research on memory accuracy
  • People are more likely to recall events when they have internal and external cues to ensure memory retrieval
  • Report everything helps trigger any cues someone may have
  • Demonstrates how parts of cognitive interview are supported by scientific evidence
• AO3 CI: Some elements may be useful

  • Not all of its elements are equally effective or useful
  • Each of the four techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview
  • But they also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them
  • This confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others
  • This casts some doubt on the credibility of the overall CI
• AO3: CI is time consuming

  • Police officers may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes more time and training than the standard police interview
  • More time is needed to establish rapport with a witness and allow them to relax
  • The CI also requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours
  • This suggests that the complete CI is not a realistic method for police officers to use and it might be better to focus on just a few key elements
• AO3 CI: Variations of CI

  • Police forces have taken a ‘pick and mix’ approach to the various techniques in the CI
  • This means it is hard to compare the effectiveness of different approaches in research studies
  • This ‘pick and mix’ approach is more flexible
  • It means that individuals can develop their own approach according to what works best for them.
• AO3 Cognitive Interview: May not be effective for everyone

  • Research has shown that cognitive interview is less effective when police officers use it on children
  • Children are more likely to become stressed when being interrogated
  • They are then more susceptible to the effects of leading questions which can also lead to false memories
  • Limits the use of cognitive interview as a technique for eyewitness testimony