Cognitive Interview

11 Key excerpts on "Cognitive Interview"

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  eBook - ePub

  Memory and Suggestibility in the Forensic Interview

  • Mitchell L. Eisen, Jodi A. Quas, Gail S. Goodman, Mitchell L. Eisen, Jodi A. Quas, Gail S. Goodman(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  One possible solution to this problem, the focus of the present chapter, is to improve the method of interviewing to elicit information from witnesses. The interview process is a prime candidate for improvement because (a) it can be controlled strategically, (b) police receive inadequate training in interviewing and hence make avoidable errors, and (c) existing relevant scientific knowledge can be adapted to the task. The specific solution that we examine is the Cognitive Interview (CI) method for interviewing cooperative witnesses (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992).

  Several reviews of the CI literature have appeared recently (Bekerian & Dennett, 1993; Fisher, 1995; Geiselman & Fisher, 1997; Memon & Koehnken, 1992). The present chapter adds to this literature by (a) examining the CI’s use with children and other unconventional populations, (b) discussing the reliability of CI-elicited testimony, and specifically, the CI’s

  ability to combat suggestibility, and (c) evaluating the CI along forensically relevant criteria.

  PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES AND INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES

  The following is a thumbnail description of the core elements of the CI, organized in terms of the three basic psychological processes: memory/general cognition, social dynamics, and communication. For a more complete description, see Fisher and Geiselman (1992). Each section begins with a global analysis, followed by related principles of psychology, and concludes with the specific interviewing techniques recommended by the CI to implement these principles.

  Memory/General Cognition

  Many crimes occur suddenly and without warning. As a result, witnesses can do little to prepare themselves to encode a crime properly. For cognitive theory to be useful in an eyewitness memory task, it must be drawn from either the research on retrieval processes in memory or from general principles of cognition.

  Context Reinstatement.

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  Forensic Art and Illustration

  • Karen T. Taylor(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Remember that people are naturally suggestible after trauma. Take care to avoid suggesting specifics. 6. Use witness-compatible questioning. Because each witness has a unique mental representation of an event, the interviewer should tailor the questions to the particular mental representation of the person being interviewed. For example, if a witness reports seeing a subject from the profile view only, the questions should be geared toward that orientation. 164 Forensic Art and Illustration Review of the Stages of the Cognitive Interview Introduction and Rapport-Building Stage — This stage establishes the essential interpersonal dynamics necessary to promote memory retrieval and good com-munication throughout the remainder of the interview. Beginning of an Open-Ended Narrative — This stage is necessary for determi-nation of the witness’ mental representation of the crime and how the mental files are organized. The interviewer then can develop an effective strategy for probing the witness’ knowledge. Probing Stage — This is the primary information-gathering stage when the inter-viewer guides the witness to the stored mental files and attempts to exhaust their contents. Review Stage — The interviewer reviews the information obtained from the witness to ensure its accuracy, providing the witness the opportunity to recall additional information. Close of the Interview — The interviewer closes the interview and tells the witness to contact the interviewer in the future if he or she recalls any additional facts. Cognitive Interviewing provides members of law enforcement and others who require effective, detailed information-gathering procedures with a systematic approach to increase the information elicited. Based on known principles of memory and commu-nication, this method works hand in hand with the ways the mind processes information. The Cognitive Interviewing approach is also a more victim-sensitive approach for law enforcement personnel to use.

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  Crime and Criminality

  A multidisciplinary approach

  • Sandie Taylor(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In this chapter we will explore the importance of having an interview format that is conducive to extracting information from eyewitnesses. During the investigative process, police interview victims, eyewitnesses and suspects. These interviews are mostly conducted at police stations but at times they might have to interview at the crime scene or at the homes of victims or eyewitnesses. Despite the location, they tend to use the standard police interview. The standard police interview format requires little training but frequently obstructs optimum retrieval of information about witnessed criminal events. Why the standard police interview can be obstructive will be explained in relation to psychological research of how human memory operates. Different memory theories relevant to eyewitness memory are described, and in particular, theories for which the principles of the Cognitive Interview are founded. The principles of the Cognitive Interview are derived from psychological memory research, which is why it is a successful investigative tool. The Cognitive Interview is increasingly used by different police forces in the UK because of its successful approach to attaining information from witnesses, victims and suspects. We will explore the modifications made to the Cognitive Interview format over the years – in particular the enhanced Cognitive Interview, which draws upon 13 types of interview skills and consists of 11 phases. In this chapter, evidence of how effective the Cognitive Interview actually is will be explored in the context of case examples where perpetrators were apprehended and arrested on the basis of valuable information presented by victims and witnesses using this method of interview. Furthermore, there have been many successes with the enhanced format, especially with young children, senior adults and those with learning difficulties. The empirical evidence presented in this chapter demonstrates the success rate of the Cognitive Interview (regardless of modification) versus the standard police interview in the increase of information retrieval. This success extends to facial composite construction using systems encouraging holistic processing. The evidence supporting the use of the Cognitive Interview (including its modifications) will be reviewed, and how police training in Britain now incorporates the Cognitive Interview into the Professionalising Investigation Programme of 2009.

  Introduction

  The Cognitive Interview (CI) is a successful and useful method of attaining information from eyewitnesses, victims and suspects. This interview technique was recently introduced to police forces across Britain and is steadily overtaking the standard police interview as a successful investigative tool. It is successful because the underlying principles of the CI are founded on sound psychological research of how memory operates. The CI was first introduced by Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon and Holland (1986) as an effective working method for enhancing information retrieval. The CI follows a fixed sequence based on four mnemonic (a device like a rhyme or formula used to help learn and remember information) principles. Using these principles, witnesses are able to supply investigators with a narrative report (the structure of the CI will be discussed in more detail later). The CI strategy is very different from the standard police interview where eyewitnesses would be interrupted by the police interviewer at the commencement of information recall (Fisher, Geiselman and Raymond 1987). During the standard police interview three open-ended questions are normally asked such as, ‘Describe what your attacker did?’ When the interviewee responded to a question, the police interviewer would intervene on average 7.5 seconds after they started to answer the question. This time-frame was repeated for all questions asked. The interviewer would interrupt on average 11 times per question answered. Interruptions are not conducive for effective retrieval of information because it not only disrupts the continuity and flow of information recall but it impairs witness concentration (the structure of the standard police interview will also be discussed in more detail later).

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  Psychology in the Courts

  • Raymond R. Corrado, Rebecca Dempster, Ronald Roesch, Raymond R. Corrado, Rebecca Dempster, Ronald Roesch(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  PART 4

  EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONY

  Passage contains an image

  Chapter 14

  CHILDREN's RECALL OF THE UNFORTUNATE FAKIR: A FURTHER TEST OF THE ENHANCED Cognitive Interview

  Pär Anders Granhag and Emma Spjut

  Most professionals working within the field of law enforcement (and related areas) would agree that interviewing a witness or a victim is a very delicate task, especially so if the witness or victim is a child (Ceci & Bruck, 1993; 1995; Poole & Lamb, 1998). Furthermore, although police officers seem to agree that witnesses usually provide central leads in criminal investigations, they also report that they often find witnesses’ statements to be incomplete (Kebbel & Milne, 1998). Hence, to develop interview techniques that facilitate the elicitation of both correct and complete statements is of paramount importance. In the last decade, much research has focused on one such technique: the Cognitive Interview (for a recent review see Köhnken, Milne, Memon, & Bull, 1998). The present study focuses on the use of the Cognitive Interview to enhance children's recall.

  The Cognitive Interview (CI) and the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI)

  In the mid-eighties, Geiselman and Fisher introduced the Cognitive Interview (Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1986). The CI is based upon two well-known principles from cognitive psychology. The first principle is the multicomponent view of the memory trace (e.g. Bower, 1967). In short, this principle suggests that memory traces are multi-featured, and that if some features aren't accessible using one type of retrieval probe, another type of probe might unlock the memory. The second principle is known under the name of “encoding specificity” (e.g. Tulving & Thomson, 1973). The idea behind this principle is that the most effective retrieval probes are those that successfully reinstate the original encoding environment. Obviously, the multicomponent view of the memory trace and the encoding specificity principle are inter-related. Using these two principles as the point of departure, Geiselman and Fisher derived four mnemonics: (1) the “report everything” instruction, which encourages the interviewee to report as many details as she or he can; (2) the “mental reinstatement of context” instruction, which asks the interviewee to mentally recreate both the internal (e.g. feelings) and external (e.g. physical surroundings) context of the to-be-remembered event; (3) the “recalling-of-the-event-in-an-alternative-temporal-order” instruction (e.g. reverse order recall); (4) the “change-perspective” instruction, which encourages the interviewee to try to recall the event from the perspective of another witness.

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  ePro

  Electronic Solutions for Patient-Reported Data

  • Brian Tiplady, Bill Byrom(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Cognitive Interviewing has emerged in the last twenty years or so as one of the predominant methods for identifying and correcting problems with draft survey questions. Although the term actually encompasses a variety of practices, Beatty and Willis (2007) define Cognitive Interviewing as ‘the administration of draft survey questions while collecting additional verbal information about the survey responses, which is used to evaluate the quality of the response or to help determine whether the question is generating the information that its author intends.’ Ideally, an iterative approach is used. After conducting a ‘round’ perhaps involving between ten and twenty interviews, researchers take stock of some initial results, revise the questionnaire, and test it again. It is a versatile method that can be applied to many different types of questionnaire, and indeed, it can be adapted to evaluate the effectiveness of other materials such as maps or informational brochures (Willis, 2005). Cognitive Interviewing can make important contributions to the development of electronic self-report or ePRO instruments as well.

  This chapter will explain how. It will begin with a general explanation of what Cognitive Interviewing is and how it fits within the overall toolbox of questionnaire evaluation methods. From there, the chapter will cover some general issues that apply to the design of any Cognitive Interviewing study and then it will address issues and decisions specific to the testing of a questionnaire that has migrated from paper and pencil to an ePRO format.

  The Emergence of Cognitive Interviewing

  For decades, questionnaire designers relied primarily upon general principles and illustrations to evaluate the quality of their instruments. One of the earliest sets of guidelines was provided by Cantril and Fried (1944), who developed a taxonomy of questionnaire problems including such pitfalls as ‘technical or unfamiliar words’ and ‘questions obscure in meaning,’ among others. Payne’s classic The Art of Asking Questions

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  Eyewitness Memory

  Theoretical and Applied Perspectives

  • Charles P. Thompson, Douglas J. Herrmann, J. Don Read, Darryl Bruce, David G. Payne(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Koehnken, 1995 ) consists of five stages: rapport building, free recall, questioning, review, and closing. During the rapport-building phase, the interviewer engages in casual conversation by asking open-ended questions unrelated to the forensically relevant event(s). The interviewer also informs the witness that the interviewer does not have any knowledge of the event(s) in question and that the witness should set the pace for the interview. In the free-recall phase, the interviewer requests a free narrative account from the witness. In the questioning phase, the interviewer asks questions based solely on the information provided by the witness during the free-recall phase. The interviewer begins with open-ended questions, following them with closed questions if necessary. The interviewer specifically is instructed to avoid the use of leading, misleading, and forced-choice questions. During this phase, the interviewer also cautions the witness not to fabricate responses. Finally, the interviewer reviews the information obtained during the free-recall and questioning phases, then closes the interview.

  The Cognitive Interview. The Cognitive Interview (CI; Fisher & Geiselman, 1992 ) rests on the assumption that different information can be retrieved with different memory searches. The CI consists of the same five stages used in the SI (rapport building, free recall, questioning, review, and closing; Fisher & McCauley, 1995 ). However, persons questioned with a CI also are taught several mnemonic approaches designed to maximize information retrieval. These techniques include reinstating the context of the original event, relating the event from different perspectives (e.g., describing what another person present at the event would have seen), and recounting the event in different orders (e.g., reverse chronological order). Interviewers using CI techniques also promote complete memory searches by encouraging witnesses to relate every detail they can remember, no matter how seemingly trivial (Fisher & McCauley, 1995 ; Geiselman, Saywitz, & Bornstein, 1993 ). Research indicates that CI techniques are helpful for both adults and children (see Fisher & McCauley, 1995 , for a review), although there is evidence that older children benefit more than younger children from CI training (Geiselman et al., 1993 ).

  Memon et al. (1995)

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  Retrospective Assessment of Mental States in Litigation

  Predicting the Past

  • Robert I. Simon, Daniel W. Shuman, Robert I. Simon, Daniel W. Shuman(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • American Psychiatric Association Publishing

    (Publisher)

  What could you hear? (pause) Could you smell any- thing? (pause) (Memon 1998, p. 172) Elsewhere Memon adds, “The CI interviews used a combination of context reinstatement and imagery instructions in the questioning phase. The interviewers actively encouraged the children to generate images of the event and to describe them” (Memon et al. 1997a, p. 192). In this sense the Cognitive Interview could be considered an imagery-type of “memory recovery technique.” The revised Cognitive Interview consists of the same context reinstatement and varied retrieval strategies combined with more careful attention to interviewing methods that allow the subject to have more control over the interview and its pace and that use more open-ended questions (Fisher et al. 1987). To date we have located a total of 42 laboratory studies that have used imagery, the great majority using either the original or the revised Cogni- tive Interview. Of these studies only five (Malpass and Devine 1981; Ceci et al. 1994a, 1994b; Poole and Lindsay 1995; Yuille and McEwan 1985) used imagery per se, not combined with the Cognitive Interview. In most of the 42 studies, college research subjects were shown some stimulus event, typically a brief film of a complex event such as a bank robbery or a car accident, or sometimes they witnessed a live staged theft. A few studies were conducted on eyewitnesses to actual crimes and accidents (e.g., Fisher et al. 1989). After viewing the stimulus event, the subjects were asked to re- call the event. The imagery-based Cognitive Interview (original or revised version) was administered to the experimental group, and a standard or structured interview was administered to a control group. Results were for- mulated in terms of the percentage of new, accurate information retrieved about the stimulus event in the imagery-based Cognitive Interview relative to the control interview procedure.

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  Evidence and Proof in Scotland

  Context and Critique

  • Donald Nicolson(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Edinburgh University Press

    (Publisher)

  Laboratory and field experiments show that the enhanced Cognitive Interview produces between 25 per cent and 45 per cent more accurate information than typical police interviews which eschew many of its tech-niques, while also inoculating interviewees against subsequent misleading information. On the other hand, it has had little success in enhancing suspect identification or constructing facial composites, and only mixed success with children. Furthermore, logistical and motivational factors mean that its techniques are not always fully or appropriately utilised by those trained to use them. 132 Like the Cognitive Interview, hypnosis involves encouraging inter-viewees to relax, and concentrate on and take themselves back to the relevant events. However, hypnosis cannot miraculously enhance recall 132 See, for example, R. Milne and R. Bull, ‘Interviewing by the Police’ and M. B. Powell and T. Bartholomew, ‘Interviewing and Assessing Clients from Different Cultural Backgrounds: Guidelines for All Forensic Professionals’, both in Carson and Bull, above n. 13. Lawyer training manuals have long drawn on psychological research on effective interviewing (see, for example, A. Sherr, Client Interviewing for Lawyers: An Analysis and Guide (1986)), though their impact has not been studied. 264 Evidence and Proof in Scotland performance. 133 Indeed, research shows that it can be used to implant false information and that people lie under hypnosis, and hence that evi-dence obtained under hypnosis is justifiably treated by the courts with suspicion. 134 But, whatever the merits of different interviewing techniques, it is clear that the questioning style used in formal proceedings – leading questions, aggressive cross-examination, breaches of conversational rules, arcane terminology, complex syntax, etc. – seems almost deliberately designed to undermine effective recall.

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  Principles of Kinesic Interview and Interrogation

  • Stan B. Walters(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  We are subtly teaching this subject to probe his memories and recover larger and more accurate blocks of information. For the person who intends to be deceptive, however, his initial efforts at decep-tion eventually create serious cognitive problems in trying to maintain this deception. They also create emotional arousal at the fear of being caught in his deception, which, in turn, tends to stimulate stress and deception signals at those points in his statement that are most suspicious. Once the interviewer identifies those areas during which the subject demonstrated some form of cognitive disruption or emotional arousal, those become the focus of the interviewer’s follow-up questions. Basic Theory The first objective in the information retrieval process is to draw out details regarding an event from the deeper recesses of the subject’s mind into the conscious level of the subject’s awareness. For the cooperative subject, we are creating an atmosphere that is conducive to retrieving information stored in his memory. The methods used are designed to facilitate the subject’s best use of his own memory and to do so more efficiently and effectively. By assisting the subject in the retrieval process, we help him gather critical information and details. This is conducted in a narrative-based interview atmosphere that has been shown to successfully produce more information in terms of volume and quality. At the same time, it is least likely to contam-inate the subject providing the statement. While we are creating this narrative-based interview atmosphere, we are going to reduce the risk of contamination of a suspect’s statement due to the interviewer’s preconceptions. This also helps reduce the amount of erroneous or misleading information, as well as false confessions. The deceptive subject will resist this process and avoid providing any damaging or incriminating details. The deceptive subject also finds ways to merge nonthreatening information with truth.

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  Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing

  Current Developments and Future Directions

  • Ray Bull, Tim Valentine, Tom Williamson, Ray Bull, Tim Valentine, Tom Williamson(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  The correlation between amount of reminiscence and overall accuracy may be relatively weak. Experimental testing We report an overview of the results from 19 experiments to assess the predic- tions of the Courtroom and Cognitive theories. Each of the experiments conformed to the following general procedure. Witnesses (typically college students, but the same patterns of results also obtained for others) either watched a videotape of a simulated crime (robbery or homicide) or observed a live, innocuous event or a staged confrontation between two people. The witnesses were then tested formally (paper-and-pencil test) or, as in most experiments, participated in face-to-face interviews to assess their memories of the event. Most of the witnesses were tested twice. The tests or interviews occurred either shortly after observing the event (within 30 minutes) or after a delay of up to two weeks. The interview questions or probes were either open-ended (e.g., Describe the robber) or were closed. There were three kinds of closed questions: cued recall (e.g., What color were the robber’s eyes?), multiple choice (What color was the robber’s eyes: green, blue, black, or brown?) and True/False (The robber’s eyes were green: true or false?). The witnesses were sometimes encouraged to be very certain before volunteering an answer, sometimes encouraged to guess, and sometimes not given any explicit instructions about certainty. We compared the witness statements across the two interviews and cate- gorized them as one of four types: Consistent (same answer at Time 1 and Time 2, e.g., robber was a white male at Time 1, and robber was a white male at Time 2), contradiction (contradictory answers at Time 1 ( clean-shaven) and Time 2 ( bearded)), reminiscent (no answer at Time 1, but witness provides an answer at Time 2 ( red shirt), and forgotten (witness provides an answer at Time 1 ( baseball hat) but does not answer at Time 2. We then calculated the

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  Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires

  • Stanley Presser, Jennifer M. Rothgeb, Mick P. Couper, Judith T. Lessler, Elizabeth Martin, Jean Martin, Eleanor Singer(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Interscience

    (Publisher)

  94 DO DIFFERENT Cognitive Interview TECHNIQUES PRODUCE DIFFERENT RESULTS? be less experienced in Cognitive Interviewing; (3) the questionnaire should be tested “as is”; (4) research teams would not have access, as would be typical, to a survey sponsor for guidance and/or feedback; (5) the interviews should use typ- ical procedures to the extent that the experimental environment would allow; and (6) all Cognitive Interview findings should be reported in a question-by-question format, with a revised questionnaire attached. 5.4.2 The Questionnaire Each research team used the same questionnaire, a paper version of a preexisting general population computer-assisted phone survey on recycling containing 48 items, 2 with an expected interview time of 10 to 15 minutes. The questionnaire asked about trash removal practices in households, recycling practices, attitudes about recycling, and opinions on alternative recycling strategies. This particular survey was selected for several reasons: (1) a general population survey decreases the possibility of bias due to recruiting respondents with special characteristics or behaviors; (2) the survey topic was not known to be an area of substantive expertise for any of the research teams; (3) it contains both factual and opinion questions; (4) it had been fielded previously; 3 and (5) there seemed to be room for improvement in the design of the questionnaire. 5.4.3 Evaluating the Data Comparing Teams’ Cognitive Interviewing Results To quantify and analyze the Cognitive Interview results, the authors applied a questionnaire appraisal cod- ing scheme to problems described in the teams’ reports. Many coding schemes exist (see, e.g., Blair et al., 1991; Bolton, 1993; Conrad and Blair, 1996; Lessler and Forsyth, 1996; Presser and Blair, 1994; Rothgeb et al., 2001), and most are based on a four-stage response process model.

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