EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY/COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY/COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

1. Research has found that EWT is unreliable and this may be due to the interviewing method.

2. Standard police interview - free recall of the event with minimal input from the interviewer. This is followed by a question and answer approach e.g. 'Who, what, where and how'.

   • LACK OF RELIABILITY = ALTERNATIVE METHODS NOW USED

3. COGNITIVE INTERVIEW - aims to improve the witness recall by helping recall information from the encoding stage but also to increase the number of memory retrieval paths. Meaning a person has more cues to enable a more accurate recall.

   • Geiselman et al (1985)
   • 1. CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT - witness is asked to recall the whole event including location, environment and themselves.
   • 2. REPORT EVERYTHING - witness is asked to recall every event no matter how unimportant it may seem.
   • 3. CHANGE PERSPECTIVE - describe event from another persons viewpoint
   • 4. REVERSE ORDER - witness is asked to go through the event in a different order.
   • ENHANCED COGNITIVE INTERVIEW - features additional elements of the CI which focus on the social elements of interaction. E.g. when to use eye contact
     • Fisher et al (1987)
   • EVALUATION
     • 1. IMPORTANT AREA OF APPLIED MEMORY RESEARCH - police officers are specially trained on how to conduct an enhanced cognitive interview
       • This should reduce false EWT and improve the reliability.
     • 2. EFFECTIVENESS HAS BEEN SUPORTED BY A LARGE BODY OF RESEARCH EVIDENCE - Low ecological validity. Fisher et al (2002)
     • 3. TIME CONSUMING - takes much longer than a standard interview.
       • Also requires special training and the police department may not have enough money for this.
     • 4. FOUND TO BE LESS EFFECTIVE ON CHILDREN - under the age of 6. They do not understand the process so this may lead them to be under distress.
   • RESEARCH EVIDENCE - FISHER (2002)
     • 50 lab experiments that used cognitive interviews.
     • Volunteer student samples watched a film simulation of a crime.
     • FACE TO FACE INTERVIEW which was either a cognitive interview or a standard interview.
     • Students who received the cognitive interview gave between 25-100% more accurate statement than those from a standard interview.