cognitive interview

• Geiselman et al (1984) developed the cognitive interview (CI) interviewing technique, which was based on proven psychological principles concerning effective memory recall. There are four distinct components.
• The second is to report everything, even seemingly unimportant details, as these details could trigger other memories by acting as cues.
• The third is to change the order of recollection, for example recalling the events backwards.
• The final components are used to disrupt schemas affecting recall, which may be influenced by what you would expect to happen
• The CI was later developed into the enhanced cognitive interview - an advanced method of questioning witnesses that overcomes problems caused by inappropriate sequencing of questions by building a trusting relationship between interviewer and witness suggested by Fisher and Geiselman (1987).
• There is research to support the effectiveness of the cognitive interview. A meta-analysis of 53 studies found that there was an increase of 34% of correct information gathered on average when using CI compared to standard interviewing practices (Kohnken et al 1999). However most of these studies were tested in a lab, which may not reflect real life effectiveness, due to a lack of mundane realism. This overall suggests that the CI is an effective technique for increasing the amount of stored information.
• Another problem with the CI is that it takes a large amount of time and training to implement it. Police officers often suggest that this technique takes up more time than is available and that they prefer to use more deliberate strategies to limit an eyewitness report to only the information that officers feel is necessary. As well as this, the CI requires special training and many forces may not be able to provide more than a few hours (Kebbell and Wagstaff 1996). These limitations mean that the use of the CI in police interviews has not been widespread.
• However, a criticism of the CI is that the quality of information gathered may suffer. The procedure is designed to increase the quantity of correct recall. Kohnken et al (1999) found an 81% increase of correct information, but also a 61% increase of incorrect information when the enhanced CI was compared to standard interviewing techniques. This means that police need to treat information collected with CIs with caution, as it doesn’t guarantee accuracy.