EWT: Cognitive Interview Flashcards
(8 cards)
4 techniques of cognitive interview
1.Report everything
2.Reinstate the context
3.Reverse the order
4.Change perspective
Cognitive interview
-A type of interview designed to use special techniques in order to maximise the interviewees recall accuracy.
-Devised by fisher and Geiselman
Report everything
-Witness is made to recall every last bit of information they possibly can about the event, even if it appears irrelevant or if they are unsure of it.
-This is done to not only get thorough detail of the event to avoid missing anything but this also may trigger other more important information.
Reinstate the context
-The witness is made to mentally return to the crime scene in their mind, imagine the scenery and their emotions.
-This part is focussed on Improving accuracy in relation to context dependent forgetting.
Reverse the order
-Witness asked to recall in an alternative chronological order (middle to beginning, end to beginning).
-This is done to prevent people recalling expectations of how they thought the event would typically play out.
Change perspective
Enhanced Cognitive Interview
-Psychologists later devised extra elements for cognitive interview in order to further increase recall accuracy.
-This included, managing eye contact, reducing anxiety of the witness, minimising distractions, having the witness speak slowly and asking open ended questions.
Cognitive interview general eval
-Cognitive interviews are very time consuming compared to the standard police interview. It also requires special training making it difficult to implement on a large scale in the real world.
-Evidence suggests enhanced cognitive interview is effective. Meta analysis from 50 studies found ECI to produce more correct information than the standard interview. Suggests real practical benefits to CI, giving police a greater chance of catching criminals.
