6 - Improving accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony

including the use of the cognitive interview

Cognitive Interview Method (AO1)

Fisher and Geiselman (1992) suggested this method to improve effectiveness of witness questioning in interviews

• Report everything

• Reinstatement of context

• Change order

• Change perspective

Report Everything (AO1)

• interviewee encouraged to include all details, no matter how irrelevant they might be

• useful as memories are interconnected, causing one piece of information to trigger more

Reinstatement of Context (AO1)

• interviewer encourages interviewee to build a mental picture of the environment from the original incident, including emotions

• Builds on Tulving (1983) which suggest Encoding Specificity Principle where if a cue is to help us recall information, then it has to be present at encoding (when the information is learnt) and at retrieval. Thus recalling potential cues can improve recall

Change Order

• eg reversing the order of events

• useful as it can disrupt schemas of what should have happened, instead prompting the witness to recall what actually happened

• also prevents dishonesty

Change Perspective

• interviewee asked to recall from other people’s perspective

• disrupts schemas of what should have happened, instead prompting the witness to recall what actually happened

Cognitive Interview (AO3) - positive research, but drawbacks

A strength of the Cognitive Interview is that there is supporting research for its effectiveness

Kohnken et al. (1999)

• meta-analysis of 53 studies

• found an average 34% increase in accurate information provided by witnesses compared to standard police interview

• however an increase in inaccurate information was also found, suggesting CI can produce more information, but that it could compromise the quality of the information

suggests police must be cautious with using information collected using CI as it does not always guarantee increased accuracy

Cognitive Interview (AO3) - is all of it useful?

A limitation of the Cognitive Interview is that not all of the 4 elements are equally as useful

Milne and Bull (2002)

• tested all interview procedures on their own, and in combination with others

• found all 4 elements alone produce more information than the standard interview

• found using the Context Reinstatement and Report Everything elements produced the best recall

suggests CI is effective, but that some elements are more useful than others. In order to save police resources they can just use the Context Reinstatement and Report Everything elements

Cognitive Interview (AO3) - is it practical to implement?

A limitation of the Cognitive Interview is that it might not be practical due to the necessary training needed to implement it

Kebbel and Wagstaff (1996)

• carried out a survey of police officers and found there was widespread use of CI

• found there was concern over how much information was recalled, and the necessary time commitment to complete

• CI needs special training to properly carry out, and many police forces don’t have the resources to train and carry out the CI properly

suggests the CI might not be practical for real-world usage, and it might be better to only focus on a few key elements like context reinstatement and report everything