Eyewitness testimony: The cognitive interview

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  • AO1:
  • The cognitive interview:
  • Fisher and Geiselman claim that EWT could be improved if the police use techniques based on psychological insights into how memory works. They called it the cognitive interview to indicate its foundation in cognitive psychology. Rapport (understanding) is established with interviewee. 
  • Report everything - Witnesses are encouraged to include every detail of an event, even if it seems irrelevant or the witness isn't confident about it. Seemingly trivial details could be important and amy triggers other memories. 
  • Reinstate the context - The witness resturns to the origional crime scene 'in ther mind' and imagines the environment (the weather, what they could see etc) and their emtions (what they felt). This is based on the concept of context-dependent forgetting. Cues from the context may trigger recall. 
  • Reverse the order - Events are recalled in a different order (from the end to the beginning). This prevents people using their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty (harder to prodice an unthruthful account if it has to be reversed). 
  • Change perspective - Witnesses recall the incident from other people's perspectives. How would it appear to someone else. This prevents the influence of expectations and schema on recall. Schema are packages of information developed through experience. They generate a framework for interpreting incoming

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