THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW Improving Eye Witness Testimony

Recap ◦ Complete the matching task to pair researchers with their findings

Loftus and Palmer (1974) AGE – Found that there was no difference in the memory of different age groups when describing someone they had met earlier Anastasi and Rhodes (2006) ANXIETY – Interviewed real-life witnesses to a shooting and found that anxiety (being close to the shooting) enhanced recall/memory. Loftus (1979) MISLEADING INFORMATION – Found that information given after an event in the form of verbs used in different questions can change the memory of the event Kent and Yuille (1987) AGE – Found evidence of own age bias – we are better at recognising and remembering people who are the same/similar age to us. Yarmey (1993) ANXIETY - Found that anxiety impairs memory due to the weapon focus phenomenon Yuille and Cutshall (1986) AGE – Found that younger children are more likely to pick someone from a line-up even if they think the person isn’t there

Learning Objectives ◦ To describe the processes involved in the cognitive interview ◦ To outline how the cognitive interview can help improve eye-witness statements ◦ To evaluate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview using research evidence

How can we improve EWT? ◦ The way witnesses are interviewed ◦ THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW ◦ Developed by Geiselman et al (1985)

Four Stages ◦ 1. Context Reinstatement – mentally revisiting scene – how did you feel? What was the weather like? ◦ 2. Report Everything – Describe everything you can remember, even if it seems trivial ◦ 3. Recall in Different Orders – i.e. starting from a point and going backwards ◦ 4. Recall from a Different Perspective –

Card Sort ◦ Which stage of the interview belongs to which definition

Video clip ◦ Write a script using the cognitive interview structure ◦ – up to 21 seconds

Your Script

Research – APRC – Page 107 ◦ Aim : Geiselman (1985) set out to investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview. ◦ Method : Participants viewed a film of a violent crime and, after 48 hours, were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods: the cognitive interview; a standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police; or an interview using hypnosis. The number of facts accurately recalled and the number of errors made were recorded. ◦ Results : The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 41.2, for hypnosis it was 38.0 and for the standard interview it was There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition. ◦ Conclusion : The cognitive interview leads to better memory for events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared with a traditional interview method. ◦ BUT… Artificial setting, SO…. ◦ Fisher – usedwith real-life witnesses to crimes, he found that the cognitive interview elicited 47% more information than the standard interview.

Evaluation ◦ It is time consuming to train inexperienced staff and therefore costly. ◦ Also time consuming to actually conduct - police in the field say that it takes too long. If they want information quickly, they are likely to use other techniques. ◦ Can sometimes generate too much information. ◦ Research support to show that it is effective in improving accuracy (i.e. Fisher) ◦ Modified for use with children