cognitive interview

cognitive interview explanation

• Cognitive interview (CI) - procedure used in police investigations when interviewing eyewitnesses

• The CI was developed by Geiselman et al. (1985) to:

  • Improve the efficacy of police interviews

  • Improve the accuracy and completeness of EWT

• 4 components of CI:

  • Mental reinstatement of original context

  • Report everything

  • Change order

  • Change perspective

mental reinstatement of original context definition

• The first stage of CI involves the eyewitness being asked to recall and recreate the physical and psychological environment of the incident mentally

• The purpose is to make the memories more accessible by giving contextual and emotional cues

  • This is related to context-dependent forgetting

• Questions that may be asked:

  • “What had you been doing?”

  • “How were you feeling?”

  • “What was the weather like?”

report everything definition

• During the second stage, the eyewitness is asked to report all details of the event without any editing of seemingly irrelevant details

  • Only specific memory may connect to another and may act as a cue for other important memories

• Piecing together lots of small, irrelevant details may create a clearer idea of the whole event

• Statements that might be made:

  • “Nothing is irrelevant”

  • “Please do not leave out any details”

change order definition

• The eyewitness may be asked to recall events in reverse order to how they occurred at the time

• The purpose of this is that schemas influence the perspective and recollections of events

  • Recalling events in reverse order prevents preconceived ideas from influences what can be recalled

• Recalling events in a different order can also prevent people from lying, as it is harder to be dishonest when asked to describe events in an alternative order

• Questions which can be asked:

  • “What had happened before that”

  • “Can you tell me what happened, starting with the very last thing you remember”

change perspective definition

• During the final stage of the CI, the eyewitness is asked to recall events from the perspective of other witnesses or the perpetrator

• The purpose of this stage is to disrupt the effect of the schemas and prevent a schema overlaying the memory

• Questions which can be asked:

  • “Recall the event from the perspective of another person who was there”

 

strengths of cognitive interview explanation

• Supporting research on the efficacy of CI is a meta-analysis carried out by Kohnken et al. (1999), who analysed 55 different studies comparing CI and standard police interviews

  • The findings showed that CI improved the accuracy of EWT by 41%

  • This suggests that the CI is an effective procedure to aid witnesses in recalling accurate memories that are available but not immediately accessible following an event

• The CI may aid elderly witnesses in recalling accurate details of events

  • Mellow & Fisher (1996) compared younger and elderly participants who witnessed a simulated crime

  • The CI was more effective for the older participants

  • This suggests that the CI can be used for different individuals where a standard police interview may have limited efficacy in the accuracy of EWT

weaknesses of cognitive interview explanation

• Kohnken et al. (1999) found an increase in the number of inaccuracies in memory recall of events

  • This suggests that CI may improve the quantity of details recalled but limit the accuracy of these memories

• Not all components of the CI are useful and effective at recalling accurate details of an event

  • Milne & Bull (2002) found that combining the stages ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ gave better accuracy than the other stage of the CI when used alone

  • This suggests that some components of the CI are more effective than others

• Carrying out a CI is a time-consuming process

  • Police officers’ time is limited and there may be resistance to carrying out a full CI due to the time constraints involved in not only conducting the interview but also training police officers in the technique

  • This suggests that carrying out a full CI is not a realistic procedure for police officers to use