Cognitive interview

Improving accuracy of eyewitness testimony

EWT is vital to the police and to the justice system and yet as we know the accuracy of such witnesses is often questioned

The way in which these witnesses are questioned is also an issue

Fisher et al

Studied real life interviews by detective officers in Florida over 4 month period

They found that witnesses were frequently bombarded with a series of brief, direct and close ended questions aimed to elicit facts

The sequencing of these questions often seemed to be out of sync with the witnesses’ mental representation of the event

Witnesses were often interrupted and not allowed to talk freely about their experiences

In order to change things psychologists have devised the cognitive interview

Report everything

Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event even though it may seem irrelevant or the witnesses don’t feel confident about it

Trivial details may be important and may trigger other important memories

Reinstate the context

Witnesses should return to the original crime scene ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment (such as what the weather was like, what they could see) and their emotions such as happy or bored

This is related to context dependent forgetting

Reverse the order

Events should be recalled in a different order from the original sequence, for example from the final point to the middle to the beginning

This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than reporting the actual events

It also prevents dishonesty

Change perspective

Witnesses should recall the incident from other peoples perspectives

E.g. how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator

This is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and also the effects of schema on recall

Enhanced cognitive interview

Fisher et al added additional elements to the CI that focus on the social dynamics of the interaction e.g. knowing when to establish eye contact etc.

The ECI also includes reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open ended questions