Standard and Cognitive Interviews Flashcards
What are some features of a standard police interview?
Revolves around interviewer and not witness, interviewer does most talking including specific, forced choice questions, witnesses can’t add much detail, interviewers may unconsciously use leading questions, increasing innaccurate information.
Cognitive Interview
A police technqiue for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.
Who developed the cognitive interview?
Fisher and Geiselman (1992).
What are the four key aspects of a cognitive interview?
Report everything, consistent reinstatement, reversing the order, and changing the perspective.
Report Everything
Eyewitnesses are encouraged to report every detail, no matter how small.
Why are witnesses encouraged to report everything?
Some details may trigger other memories that contain crucial evidence.
Context Reinstatement
Eyewitnesses are asked to place themselves at the scene of the crime and are asked questions about the environment.
Why is context reinstatement used?
This is to prevent context-dependent forgetting from taking place.
Reversing the Order
The eyewitnesses are asked to recall the event in various orders to normal.
Why is reversing the order used?
This helps to avoid personal expectations of how the event happened being reported. It is also harder to be dishonest when events are reversed.
Change Perspective
Eyewitnesses are asked to recall events from another person’s perspective.
Why is changing perspective used?
Avoids the effects of personal expectations and schemas disrupting memories.
Enhanced Cognitive Interview - Fisher et al. (1987)
Focused on social aspects of an interview, such as minimal external distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly, varied eye contact, and open-ended questions.
Fisher et al. (1989) - Aim
To study and test the cognitive interview technique in the field.
Fisher et al. (1989) - Procedure
From 16 detectives from Florida, all with 5+ years of experience, seven were trained with the cognitive interview, the other nine using standard interviews. Interviews were recorded and analysed by a team in California, who did not know which were cognitive or not.