Cognitive interview

• Cognitive interview


  Developed by Fisher and Geiselman (1992) to improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, designed to be used in police interviews
• Four aspects of the cognitive interview

  • Report everything
  • Context reinstatement
  • Recall in reverse order
  • Recall from a changed perspective
• Enhanced cognitive interview


  Includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly, and asking open ended questions
• Köhnken et al. (2008) meta-analysis found the enhanced cognitive interview significantly increases the number of correctly recalled details compared to a standard interview
• Milne & Bull (2002) found that a combination of report everything and context reinstatement lead to significantly more correct recall than individual techniques by themselves
• Köhnken et al. (1999) found that whilst the enhanced cognitive interview increased correct information by 81%, it also increased incorrect information by 61%
• Research in Police departments has found that using the cognitive interview technique is very time consuming and requires specialist training, so it appears it is not always the most practical technique to use in real life situations