9. Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: the cognitive interview

define the cognitive interview

an interviewing technique developed by Geiselman et al (1984) designed to be used in police interviews that involve witnesses

state 4 components of the cognitive interview

1) mental reinstatement of original context

2) report everything

3) change order

4) change perspective

describe mental reinstatement of original context

interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate both the physical and psychological environment of the original incident

aims to make memories accessible by using appropriate contextual and emotional cues to retrieve memories

describe report everything

interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event without editing anything out, even though it may seem irrelevant

the recollection of one item may then cue a whole lot of other memories

describe change order

interviewer may try alternative ways through the timeline of the incident (e.g. by reversing the order in which events occurred)

our recollections are influenced by schemas, so recalling the events in a different order prevents pre-existing schemas influencing recall

describe change perspective

interviewee is asked to recall the incident from multiple perspectives

disrupts the effects that schemas have on recall

one strength is research support for the effectiveness of the cognitive interview

Kohnken et al (1999) conducted a meta-analysis of 53 studies and found an increase of 34% in the amount of correct information generated in the cognitive interview compared with standard interviewing techniques

however, most of these studies involved volunteers (usually students) tested in a lab = biased sample, non-generalisable findings, lacks ecological validity

suggests overall that the cognitive interview is an effective technique for increasing accessibility of information

one limitation is the amount of time and training needed to implement the cognitive interview in real life

Kebbel and Wagstaff report a problem with the cognitive interview in practice = police officers suggest that this technique requires more time than is often available, so instead they prefer to use deliberate strategies aimed to limit an eyewitness report to the minimum amount of information that the officers feel is necessary

also, the cognitive interview requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours

these limitations mean that the use of the cognitive interview in police interviews is not widespread

one limitation is the effectiveness of the cognitive interview has largely been in terms of quantity of information, rather than quality

the procedure is designed to enhance the quality of correct recall without compromising the quality of that information

Kohnken et al (1999) found an 81% increase of correct info, but also a 61% increase of incorrect info (false positives) when the enhanced cognitive interview was compared to a standard interview

means that police need to treat all info collected from cognitive interviews with caution as it does not guarantee accuracy