Improving EWT- The cognitive interview

Improving EWT- The cognitive interview

• Because of the importance of EWT within the legal system and the serious repercussions when it goes wrong, psychologists have tried to develop methods for improving accuracy of EWT
• CI is a procedure designed for use in police interviews that involve witnesses
• Fisher and Geiselman recommended that police interviewing techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works

1. Report everything

• Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness does not feel confident about it

2. Reinstate the context 

• Mentally reinstate the contextof the event
• Recall the scene, the weather, thoughts and feelings at the time

3. Reverse the order

• Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence
• This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events
• It is also used to prevent dishonesty

4. Change persepctive

• Try to recall the event from different people's perspective
• This is done to…