cognitive interview

• the cognitive interview is a way of improving accuracy of EWT
• fisher and geiselman argued ewt could be improved if police use better techniques when interviewing witnesses
• main techniques used for cognitive interview

  • reinstate the context
  • order
  • perspective
  • everything
• reinstate the context

  • witness should return to original crime scene in mind and imagine environment and emotions to trigger onset of cues - relates to retrieval failure
• order

  • events should eb recalled in different chronological order
  • done to prevent expectations of how event must have happened being reported as opposed to actual ones - prevents dishonsety
• perspective (change perspectives)

  • witnesses should recall incident from other perspectives
  • done to disrupt effect of expectations and schemas on recall (schema you have for particular setting generates expectations of what would have happened - schema is recalled)
• everything (report everything)

  • witnesses encouraged to include every detail of event
  • irrelevant details may be important or trigger onset of other memories
• cognitive interview is effective for retrieval

  • more accurate if person in same state or place as to when incident occurred
  • can provide cues to help remember
• cognitive interview is effective for leading questions

  • police use leading questions which leads to EWT being inaccurate
  • CI doesnt use list of questions out of context - reduces tendency to use leading questions
• enhanced cognitive interview

  1. fisher developed additional elements for CI - focused on social dynamics of interaction e.g. interviewer needs to know when establishing eye contact is appropriate
  2. additional aspects of enhanced CI - reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting witness to speak slowly
• evaluation points for cognitive interview

  • time consuming
  • research support (enhanced CI)
  • increase in inaccurate info
• time consuming as eval point for cognitive interview

  • interviews take time to conduct - take longer than normal interviews (more time needed for emotionally being availbale to witnesses)
  • limits accuracy of recall from eyewitness - can cause frustration for prolonging potential trauma of constant shifting mindset back and forth
  • CI requires specialist training - police forces wont have time to deliver training/amount of hours needed - means unlikely that 'proper' version of CI is used
  • limits accuracy because trained police aren't able to deliver appropriate interviews aligning with techniques
• research support (enhanced CI) as eval point for cognitive interview

  • researcher carried out meta analysis of 50 studies
  • enhanced cognitive interview (fishers later development) consistently provided more correct information than standard interviews used by police
  • strength as demonstrates that there are real practical benefits for using ECI
• increase in inaccurate info as eval point for cognitive interview

  • techniques that ECI use with aim of increasing amount of correct info remembered - can also lead to increase in incorrect recall
  • researcher found 81% increase of correct info but also 61% increase for incorrect info when ECI was compared with standard interview
  • problem as recalled info could be inaccurate - means EWT can be incorrect regardless of how witness is interviewed
  • limits application to real life usage due to lack of reliability in finding correct information