Improving the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony: Cognitive Interview (AQA A Level Psychology)

Cognitive Interview

• The cognitive interview (CI) is a procedure used in police investigations when interviewing eyewitnesses

• The CI was developed by Geiselman et al. (1985) to:

  • improve the effectiveness of police interviews were

  • use results of psychological research (Loftus) in the area of police interviews on witnesses and their memory of events

• The CI has four components:

  1. Mental reinstatement of original context

  2. Report everything

  3. Change order

  4. Change perspective

Mental reinstatement of original context

• The first stage of the CI involves the eyewitness being asked to recall and recreate the physical and psychological environment of the incident mentally

• The purpose of this stage of the interview is to make the memories more accessible by giving contextual and emotional cues

  • This is related to context-dependent forgetting

• Questions that may be asked during this stage could include:

  • Think back to the day...

  • What had you been doing?

  • What was the weather like?

  • What objects were there?

  • How were you feeling?

Report everything

• During the second stage, the eyewitness is asked to report all details of the event without any editing of seemingly irrelevant details

  • One specific memory may connect to another and may act as a cue for other important memories

• Piecing together lots of small, irrelevant details may create a clearer idea of the whole event

• Questions that may be asked during this stage could include:

  • Please do not leave out any details

  • We are interested in absolutely everything you can remember

  • Partial memories are important

  • Nothing is irrelevant

Change order

• The eyewitness may be asked to recall events in reverse order to how they occurred at the time

• The purpose of this is that schemas influence the perspective and recollections of events

  • Recalling events in reverse order prevents preconceived ideas from influencing what can be recalled

• Recalling events in a different order can also prevent people from lying as it is harder to be dishonest when asked to describe events in an alternative order

• Questions that may be asked during this stage could include:

  • Can you tell me what happened, starting with the very last thing you remember?

  • What had happened before that?

Change perspective

• During the final stage of the CI, the eyewitness is asked to recall events from the perspective of other witnesses or the perpetrator

• The purpose of this stage is to disrupt the effect of the schemas and prevent a schema overlaying the memory

• Questions that may be asked during this stage could include:

  • Recall the event from the perspective of another person who was there

  • Describe what they would have seen/heard/witnessed

Evaluation

Strengths

• Supporting research on the effectiveness of CI is a meta-analysis carried out by Kohnken et al. (1999) who analysed 55 different studies comparing CI and standard police interviews

  • The findings showed that CI improved the accuracy of EWT by 41%

  • This suggests that the CI is an effective procedure to aid witnesses in recalling accurate memories that are available but not immediately accessible following an event

• The CI may aid elderly witnesses in recalling accurate details of events

  • Mello & Fisher (1996) compared younger and elderly participants who witnessed a simulated crime

  • The CI was more effective for the older participants

  • This suggests that the CI can be used for different individuals where a standard police interview may have limited effectiveness in the accuracy of EWT

Limitations

• Kohnken et al. (1999) found an increase in the number of inaccuracies in memory recall of events

  • This suggests that CI may improve the quantity of details recalled but limit the quality (accuracy) of these memories

• Not all components of the CI are useful and effective at recalling accurate details of an event

  • Milne & Bull (2002) found that combining the stages 'report everything' and 'reinstate the context' gave better accuracy than the other stages of the CI when used alone

  • This suggests that some components of the CI are more effective than others

• Carrying out a CI is a time-consuming process

  • Police officer's time is limited and there may be resistance to carrying out a full CI due to the time constraints involved in not only conducting the interview but also training police officers in the technique

  • This suggests that carrying out a full CI is not a realistic procedure for police officers to use