The Cognitive Interview

The Cognitive Interview

1. Context Reinstatement

   • Tulving & Thomson (1973) encoding specificity principle. Items are coded together with features of the context in which they occurred.
   • Godden & Baddeley (1975) memory improves with context reinstatement. Divers could recall stuff better when under water.
   • Malpass & Devine (1981) guided imagery procedure - "do you remember coming in the room?" "how did you feel?". This facilitated recall compared to controls.
   • Teasdale & Foggerty (1979) emotional/mood cues also useful in improving memory - mental context reinstatement rather than physical.
   • Sanders (1984) physical reinstatement has little use for face recognition.
   • Idea that mental context reinstatement is better because it is more under control of the person, the cues are their own so less distractive.

2. Report Everything

   • Bower (1967) memory is stored as a series of coded representations with interconnected codes. If we recall one thing more likely to trigger another thing.
   • Geiselman et al - witnesses should be encouraged to report everything because they sometimes hold information back that they think is not relevant.

3. Recall in Different Orders

   • Schank & Abelson (1977) episodic memories can be stored in scripts that fit preconceptions about what should happen. These scripts may limit recall if they filter out information that is inconsistent with the script.
   • Whitten &Leonard (1981) forward recall encourages scripts and recall is better when does in reverse order.
   • Harder to make things up if recalling in reverse.

4. Change Perspectives

   • Anderson & Pitchert (1978) people remember additional details if recalling from the role of another position - not change spatially change role.
   • Geiselman and Fisher included this but people think that it means spatially and not by role.