The cognitive interview

• The cognitive interview encourages witnesses to a crime to recreate the original context of the crime in order to increase the accessibility of stored information through the use of multiple retrieval strategies
• Mental reinstatement of the original context- the witness is encouraged to mentally recreate the physical and psychological environment of the original incident. The aim is to provide contextual and emotional cues to retrieve memories
• Report everything- the witness is encouraged to report every single detail of the event even though it may seem irrelevant. memories are interconnected, so recollection of one item may then cue other memories
• Change order- the interviewer tries alternative ways through the timeline of the incident. The rationale is that this prevents pre-existing schema influencing recall
• Change perspective- the witness is asked to recall the incident from multiple perspectives. This also disrupts the effect that schema might have on recall
• Standard police interviews involve the interviewer doing most of the talking, asking specific questions that require specific answers. They may also ask leading questions that contaminate a witness’ memory. These techniques disrupt the natural process of searching through memory, making memory retrieval inefficient