Improving eye witness testimonies : the cognitive interview

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Last updated 1:12 PM on 9/10/26
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6 Terms

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what is a cognitive interview

a method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses 4 main techniques: report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order, change perspective

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4 main techniques of cognitive interview

  • report everything → include every detail even if it seems irrelevant → may trigger other memories

  • reinstate the context → put witness back in the scene (in their mind) and imagine environment and emotions → related to context dependant forgetting

  • reverse the order → harder to lie in the opposite order → ppl report what actually happened rather than what they expect happened

  • change perspective → recall the incident from another perspective → done to disrupt the effects of expectations and schemas on recall


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enhanced cognitive interview (ECI)

same as cognitive interview but has added components:

  • establishing eye contact

  • reducing eyewitness anxiety

  • ask open ended questions

  • getting the witness to speak slowly

  • minimising distractions


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strength of cognitive interviews

Evidence that its effective

a meta-analysis by Kohnken combined data from 55 studies comparing the cognitive interviews with the standard police interview

→ 41% increase in accurate info w cognitive interview

shows cognitive interview effective in helping witnesses recall info


counterpoint- Kohnken also found amount of inaccurate info increased too. suggesting cognitive interviews sacrifice quality of eye witness testimonies in favour of quantity

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one weaknesses of cognitive interviews

some techniques have been found more useful than others

Milne and Bull found a combination of “ report everything” and “ reinstate the context” produce better recall than the other elements

weakens credibility of overall cognitive interviews

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another weaknesses of cognitive interviews

time consuming and more training required

standard police interview: take a statement follow up if necasary

cognitive interview uses 4 main techniques → time consuming→ requires special training that many forces cannot provide for more than a few hours → not practical or realistic method for police officers to use