M: The cognitive interview Flashcards
(18 cards)
What is the cognitive interview?
A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context of the crime in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.
Why are our memories accessed using multiple retrieval strategies?
Because our memory is made up of a network of associations rather than of discrete events!
What were the two main influences behind the development of the Cognitive Interview?
- The need to improve the effectiveness of police interviewers when questioning witnesses.
- To apply the results of psychological research - Loftus, whose research had already dispelled the myth that eyewitness memory operates like a videa camera.
What did Geiselman et al. (1984) develop?
Cognitive interview (CI), which was based on proven psychological principles concerning effective memory recall.
What 4 components is the original cognitive interview characterised by?
- Mental reinstatement of original context.
- Report everything.
- Change Order.
- Change perspective.
What is mental reinstatement of original context?
Where the interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate both the physical and psychological environment of the original incident.
What is the aim of mental reinstatement of original context?
To make memories more accessible by giving appropriate contextual and emotional cues to retrieve memories.
What happens in report everything?
The interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event without editing anything out, even though it may seem irrelevant.
REPORT EVERYTHING
As memories are interconnected with eachother, what may the recollection of one item do?
It may then cue other memories.
Or the recollection of small details may be pieced together from many different witnesses to form a clearer picture of the event.
CHANGE ORDER
What happens in this?
What is the rationale behind this?
- Interviewer tries alternative ways through the timeline of the incident, eg by reversing the order in which events occured.
- The rationale behind this is that our recollections are influenced by schemas - which we want to disrupt
CHANGE PERSPECTIVE
What happens in this?
Why does this occur?
- The interviewee is asked to recall the incident from multiple perspectives, eg by imagining how it would have appeared to other witnesses present at the time.
- This is done to disrupt the effect that schemas have on recall.
(“Try to recall the incident from the perspective of another person involved in the incident. Think about where he/ she was and isolate everything that you can remember about them…..”)
What did Fisher and Geiselman (1992) identify?
They identified what was wrong with the techniques usually used by policemen when interviewing witnesses.
Standard interview
Who does is revolve around?
Who does most of the talking?
- Revolves around the interviewer rather than the witness.
- The interviewer does most of the talking, often asking specific questions that require forced choice answers such as ‘Was the criminal black or white?’
Standard interview
What are the questions often?
Questions are often predetermined following a written checklist.
Standard interview
What are witnesses discouraged from doing?
Witnesses- discouraged from adding extra information.
Standard interview
What may the interviewer unconsciously ask?
Unconsciously ask leading questions to confirm his/ her beliefs about the crime.
Standard interview
What may the discussions during the interviews do?
- Discussions may contaminate a witness’ memory so that what they recall later is inaccurate.
- Such practises tend to increase the amount of inaccurate information collected in the interview.
What are the problems with the Standard police interview?
- Leading questions- encourage witnesses to withold information, give abbreviated answers and provide answers they are unsure of.
- Disrupts the natural process of searching through memory, thereby making memory retrieval inefficient.
