The Cognitive Interview

Question 1

What is the cognitive interview?

Answer 1

• Fisher and Geiselman (1992) argued that EWT could be improved if police had special techniques

Question 2

What are the first 2 techniques of the cognitive interview?

Answer 2

1. Report everything = say every detail as they don’t know what’s actually important and it could trigger larger memories
2. Reinstate the context = return to original crime scene in their mind (context dependant forgetting)

Question 3

What are the other 2 techniques in the cognitive interview?

Answer 3

3. Reverse the order = events recalled from different order to prevent assumptions and dishonesty
4. Change perspective = recall events from POV of another witness or perpetrator to prevent effect of schemas

Question 4

What is the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 4

• Fisher et al (1987) added elements to focus on social dynamics to reduce anxiety like minimising distractions, open-ended questions and speaking slowly

Question 5

What’s 2 strengths of the cognitive interview?

Answer 5

• Strength of evidence from Köhnken where he compared data from 55 studies and there was a 41% increase of accurate information in CI - validity and reliability
• Strength of real life application, used by police in everyday life to obtain accurate EWT

Question 6

What’s 2 limitations of the cognitive interview?

Answer 6

• Limitation that CI is time consuming so police may be reluctant as you need to relax witness ans it takes expert training - not a realistic everyday procedure to do
• Limitation that some elements may be useful, some techniques are more important like report everything and reinstate context - doubts credibility of other techniques