Cognitive interview

• One weakness is that it’s time-consuming. For example a standard interview takes about 30 mins-1hr and more time is needed to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax. There are also further administrative and enforcement costs.
• A strength is that some elements may be more valuable than others. Milne and Bull found that using a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any of the other conditions.
• Another strength is the support for the effectiveness of the ECI. For example, a meta-analysis of 50 studies by Kohnken et al. suggests that ECI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police.
• However, the CI creates an increase in inaccurate information. For example, Kohnken et al. found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase in incorrect information when the ECI was compared to a standard interview.
• One strength is the research support evidence. For example, Baddely found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs, and mix up words that have similar meanings when using our LTMs.