Cognitive Interview Flashcards
Introduction
In attempting to improve eyewitness testimony researchers have concentrated on improving interview methods. To date, the most systematic method we have for improving eyewitness memory is a technique known as the Cognitive Interview.
Cognitive Interview
Developed by Ed Geiselman, Ron Fisher and their colleagues (1984 onwards) and resulted in the Cognitive Interview
The original CI was comprised of four techniques designed to enhance participants‟ recall of a prior event. The first technique involves context reinstatement, in which the interviewee is encouraged to mentally reconstruct the physical and personal context that existed at the time of the event. The second technique is to ask participants to report everything they can recall even if it is partial or incomplete. The third is based on findings that witnesses remember additional details if they recall from a different perspective. (Anderson & Pichert, 1978). Witnesses are instructed to recall from a variety of perspectives - from their own perspective and to adopt the perspective of others. Finally, witnesses are asked to recall in a different order as there is some evidence that recall is better when items recalled in reverse order (Whitten and Leonard, 1981).
Real-life forensic investigations with oringinal CI
Milne and Bull (2002)
A total of 125 participants; Undergraduate students, children aged 8–9 and 5–6 years viewed a video‐recording of an accident. Forty‐eight hours later each participant was individually interviewed and randomly assigned to one of six instruction groups; (1) context reinstatement, (2) change perspective, (3) change order, (4) report everything, (5) report everything + context reinstatement combination (RE + CR), or (6) a control instruction to ‘try again’. Each of the individual CI mnemonics were found to be of equal benefit and to occasion no more recall than the ‘try again’ control. However, the RE + CR combination resulted in significantly more correct recall compared to the individual mnemonics.
The original version of the cognitive interview produces
approximately 25% to 35% more information than controls (Kohnken, Thurer & Zoberbier, 1994). However the witness is also put through strain as they have to remember events that may not have been pleasant and could possibly become quite stressed.
The Enhanced Cognitive Interview
Fisher et al., (1987) produced what they considered to be an improved version of the CI called the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI). This sought to redress certain problems that had been encountered with the original procedure and incorporate the findings of Fisher et al. (1987) study of police interview techniques.
Research by George (1991) in the UK broadly supported these criticisms.
Build rapport with the witness
Witness compatible questioning
Focus attention (encourage the witness to focus concentration; encourage the witness to make ‘the extra effort’).
OK to say don’t know; don’t make up answers; ask interviewer to explain question if necessary;
The overall result is something that differs substantially from a standard police interview.
Experiments with ECI
The first empirical investigation of the efficacy of the ECI (Fisher et al., 1987) compared the original CI to the ECI. Undergraduates were interviewed two days after having viewed one of the LAPD training films. Results revealed that the ECI elicited 45% more correct items of information compared to the original CI. As the original CI had previously been found to be approximately 30% more effective than a standard police interview (Geiselman et al. 1985) it was, thus, concluded that the ECI produced 75% more correct recall compared to a SI.
Numerous laboratory studies have shown support for the cognitive interview with adults.
Kohnken, Milne, Bull and Memon (1999) conducted a meta-analysis of 32 experiments (1200 subjects, 2500 interviews). They found increased recall of both correct and incorrect items, but the increase greater for correct items.
CI increases correct recall without increasing errors, even in the elderly (Wright and Holiday, 2007).
There is also support for the cognitive interview CI compared with Standard Interview SI with children, so long as the instructions are made suitable for children (Verkampt & Ginet, 2010).
CI is useful with adults as even when errors do occur they do not result in an overall decrease in accuracy. The CI is similarly useful with children so long as the instructions are made very clear to them.
Field Studies
Most research on the cognitive interview has been conducted in the laboratory and field studies are rare.
Fisher, Geiselman & Amador (1989) conducted a field study with 16 experienced detectives from a robbery division in the USA. After training 63% more information was recalled by eyewitnesses.
One trained detective produced a decrease in performance of 23%. On the basis of such a small sample it is difficult to estimate whether this was a curious anomaly or whether this represents a potential problem
Additionally, the cognitive interviews were not described, therefore it is not possible to identify the elements in the cognitive interview responsible for improvements, or even if all the elements of the cognitive interview were used.
George (1991) 28 Police officers were evaluated. The results indicated 14% more information with CI compared to a SI. When compared to performance before ‘enhanced’ cognitive interview training this improvement was 55%. This advantage was for all kinds of information (i.e. who, what, when, where, how and why). But, of the four mnemonic strategies, three were hardly used; these were, instructions to report everything, change orders or change perspectives. Reinstatement of context (CR) was used more frequently and to good effect. Also Officers in the cognitive interview condition asked far fewer questions. What questions they did ask were more likely to be open and they asked far fewer leading or closed questions.
A similar pattern of results was found by Memon et al. (1994) in a laboratory study.
Critics have also suggested that the use of the change perspectives mnemonic may make it difficult to use such statements in court, especially if children are interviewed, again because of a danger of confabulation (Boon & Noon, 1994); although it appears to have little impact on jurors judgements of guilt or innocence (Kebbell, Preece & Wagstaff, 1995). Police officers in this study may have had an intuitive grasp of this and so, frequently did not use the technique. It is not clear why officers did not use instructions to report everything.
The CI and identification accuracy
Most studies have shown that the CI has no effect on identification accuracy, and may even impair it. This is odd as context reinstatement by itself can enhance face identification (Ohman et al., 2013).
It could be due to ‘verbal overshadowing’ with the CI. Recognition may be impaired because the witness is also asked to verbally describe the person.
Finger & Pezdek (1999) found that the CI impaired face recognition after a 10 minute delay, but the impairment was not evident after a 1 hour delay. The verbal overshadowing effect generally seems to disappear after a delay between verbal description and identification. However, after one hour, the CI was still no better than a control (‘standard interview’) condition.
The CI interview and auditory/ear witness memory
As many civil and criminal cases involve testimony regarding statements or contents of specific conversations, it is important to know whether auditory memory of this kind can be facilitated.
Ohman et al. (2013) - whilst a short CI procedure was effective for facilitating memory of a conversation, it was ineffective in facilitating memory for basic auditory information, i.e. voice recognition.
Visual images are remembered better than words or sentences, and retrieval is maximised when associated mental imagery is available (Lewellyn, 2012). Hence auditory information will be facilitated best (e.g. by the CI) if it evokes visualisable cues. Basic voice characteristics may be less likely to do this.
Burrell (2013) - No differences between children’s abilities as earwitnesses when interviewed with the standard and cognitive interviews.
Cognitive interview and suspects (confessing)
The introduction of PACE and PEACE means that the techniques for interviewing eyewitnesses and suspects must not differ radically.
Studies of suspect interviewing indicate that the rapport building/social aspects of the CI may be useful when interviewing suspects.
Holmberg & Christianson (2002) questionnaire responses of men convicted in Sweden of murder or serious sexual offences. More likely to confess if treated in a humane, friendly way. They were least likely to confess if frightened, stressed, and insulted.
Kebbell & Hurren (2005) looked at Australian sex offenders’ views what the police could do to increase the likelihood of a confession. The most popular answers were that interviewers should be: compassionate, neutral, clear, non-aggressive, honest, and not make false accusations. Confessions would be 63% less likely if the police interviewers were aggressive (Kebbell, 2007).
In general, it is suspects’ perception of the evidence which mainly determines their willingness to confess (Milne & Bull, 1999). Des Lauriers-Varin & St-Yves (2006 ) Best predictors of whether suspects confessed or not were perception of the strength of evidence against them, and use of legal advice at time of police interview
The cognitive interview may be useful for interviewing suspects because it aids those non-evidence based factors which may influence confessions: e.g. rapport, open questions, non-interruption, non-aggressive/dominant witness compatible questioning, and leaves challenging until later in the procedure. However, the effects are likely to be limited, as main factor affecting confessions is weight of evidence
CI and Suspets (Truth telling)
An essential feature of suspect interviewing is to attempt to determine whether someone is telling the truth.
Hernadez and Alonso-Quecuty (1997) CI amplifies the ability to discriminate between liars and non-liars possibily because it provides the non-liar with more opportunity to elaborate contextual and sensorial details; also the CI task is more difficult for liars, especially as the CI may also increase cognitive load.
Cognitive load may be an important factor in explaining the usefulness of the CI in lie detection.
Vrij et al. (2008) argue that lying is cognitively demanding. Consequently if one deliberately tries to increase cognitive load (by applying the CI, for example), this may make it easier to discriminate between liars and truthtellers. One potentially very potent way of increasing cognitive load is through the reverse order mnemonic of the cognitive interview.
CI may potentially be useful for detecting lying and interviewing suspects generally, but especially when using the reverse order mnemonic (which ironically seems to be little use in improving memory).
Preliminary laboratory research using students fabricating events, showed some success in differentiating liars and non-liars after free narrative stage (Geiselman, 2012).
Police perceptions of the Cognitive Interview
Kebbell, Milne & Wagstaff (1996)
Nearly 90% of the officers said that the cognitive interview produced ‘more’ or ‘much more’ information than a standard interview.
Frequently used and rated as more useful than others - Establish rapport, report everything, witness compatible questioning, and reinstatement of context.
More recently, Dando, Wilcock and Milne (2008) - Used more than others (Establish rapport, report everything). In contrast to Kebbell et al., 1996 the least used were - witness compatible questioning and mental reinstatement of context.
Kebbell
Officers reported that they simply do not have the time to conduct a cognitive interview. No officer used the CI in its entirety even though it is the only interview technique available (similar results were found by Clifford and George, 1995). 54% ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ had enough time to conduct what they believed was a good interview. 93% of officers believed that the cognitive interview took longer to conduct than a standard interview.
Dando et al. (2008) time was still the most significant problem and many officers do not consider the CI to be cost-effective. However, officers also complained about the complexity of the procedures.
Wheatcroft and Wagstaff on experienced officers (2013), context reinstatement was again rated as one of the least used mnemonics.
However, it must be borne in mind that officers‟ reports of how they interview may be very different from how they actually interview (Robson, 1993).
Shorten the CI, whilst maintaining its effectiveness?
Davies et al. (2005) found no memory facilitation effects for change order and change perspective mnemonics.
Context reinstatement and Report everything are the crucial CI components (see also, Milne and Bull, 2006).
Context reinstatement by itself seems to be particularly effective and requires little training (Caddick and Wagstaff, 2007).
But it has not always applied in the field (Dando et al., 2009). A better context reinstatement instruction might be to draw a picture of what happened: the Sketch Mental Reinstatement of Context (SMRC). A shortened CI procedure that included this was more effective than a SI. However, the SMRC procedure can also lead to increased errors errors (Dando, 2010). It is also not use for earwitnesses.
Memon and Stevenage (1996) found that a cognitive interview without mnemonic instructions (but with rapport etc.) produces similar recall to a full cognitive interview. Mello and Fisher (1996) have also commented that the cognitive interview may be a tool that works primarily by facilitating communication rather than or in addition to, one that facilitates memory retrieval.
Self-Administered Interview (SAI, Gabbert, Hope, & Fisher, 2009) which includes context reinstatement. But this is still quite complex and is not really an interview (it does not involve interaction, and, therefore, it is inflexible in format and misses out on critical social features such as rapport).
The LIP improved the detail and accuracy of information recalled by police fire arms officers in a realistic, high stress, training exercise (Roberts, Wagstaff, Wheatcroft, & Cole, 2014). LIP may also aid rapport and make both interviewer and interviewee feel more comfortable, and may particularly improve the general experience of traumatized witnesses in police interviews (Wheatcroft & Wagstaff, 2014).
