Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Cognitive Interview

Report everything

• Include even unimportant details

Reinstate the context

• Picture the scene and recall how you felt
• Context-dependent forgetting

Reverse the order

• Recall from the end and work backwards.
• Disrupts expectations.

Change perspective

• Put yourself in the shoes of someone else present.
• Disrupts schema.

The enhanced cognitive interview (ECI)

• Adds social dynamics, e.g. establising eye contact.

CI is time consuming

• Takes longer and needs special training.

Some elements may be more valuable than others

• Report everything and reinstate the context used together produced best recall.

Support for the effectiveness of the ECI

• ECI consistently produces more accurate recall than standard interview.

Evaluation extra

• Variations of the CI are used
• CI creates an increase in inaccurate information