cognitive interview

Question 1

AO1

Answer 1

The cognitive interview was developed in order to increase the amount of accurate recall provided by eyewitness testimonies.
It consists of 4 main techniques.
Report everything - where the interviewer will encourage the witness to report all details of the event, even if the details seem irrelevant or unimportant.
Context reinstatement - where witnesses are asked to mentally recreate an image of the situation that includes context about their environment or cues that were present at the time of the incident.
Recall from a changed perspective - where witnesses are asked to consider what the incident would have looked like from someone else’s point of view.
Recall in a reverse order - where the witness is asked to recall the events in a different chronological order.
Subsequent research has also led to the enhanced cognitive interview, which includes features such as asking open ended questions and adapting language to fit the witness.

Question 2

AO3 - Geiselman showed vid of stimulated crime

Answer 2

Geiselman showed participants a video of stimulated crime and tested them using the cognitive interview, a standard interview or an interview under hypnosis. They found that the cognitive interview elicited more information than the others. Suggesting that it is a useful way of improving the accuracy of EWT.
However, subsequent research has found that the cognitive interview can also generate more incorrect info than other methods.

Question 3

AO3 - Fisher et al Miami police

Answer 3

Fisher et al demonstrated the effectiveness of the cognitive interview in real life settings with Miami police. Trained detectives used the enhanced cognitive interview and found that genuine witnesses produced much more information. 46% more information was elicited from eye witnesses using the cognitive interview, and over 90% of these were shown to be accurate.
Additionally, conducted in real life setting so has high ecological validity and results can be generalised.

Question 4

AO3 - little practical value

Answer 4

The cognitive interview may have little practical value, due to being too time consuming and requiring specialist skills. For example, researchers argued that for most forces, only a few hours of training is possible, which is insufficient to adequately train the interviewers. Therefore some forces are not impressed with the cognitive interview.
Additionally, research found that only a few elements, such as reinstating context and reporting everything are useful.