cognitive interview 2016

• Cognitive Interview


  Memory retrieval technique developed by psychologists to gain more accurate and detailed information from witnesses
• Cognitive Interview


  • Used by police investigators
  • Consists of 4 key principles
• Cognitive Interview


  1. Context reinstatement (CR)

  2. Report everything (RE)

  3. Recall in reverse/different order (RO)

  4. Recall from a changed perspective (CP)
• Context reinstatement (CR)


  Recall image of the scene, the weather, what you were feeling
• Report everything (RE)


  Report every detail you can even if they seem irrelevant or trivial
• Recall in reverse/different order (RO)

  Describe the event from memorable point
• Recall from a changed perspective (CP)


  Describe the event as it would have been seen from different viewpoints
• Considering the problems with EWT

  Techniques used in the Cognitive Interview to help prompt witness' memories
• Enhanced CI


  • Includes additional techniques to focus on social dynamics of the interaction
  • Reducing eyewitness anxiety
  • Minimising distractions
  • Getting the witness to speak slowly
  • Asking open-ended questions
• Fischer et al (1987) developed some additional elements of the CI to focus on some of the social dynamics of the interaction