Unlike the important body of work on eyewitness memory, little research has been done on the accuracy and completeness of "earwitness" memory for conversations. The present research examined the effects of mode of presentation (audiovisual/ auditory-only) on witnesses' free recall for utterances in a criminal conversation at different retention intervals (immediate/delayed) within a single experiment. Different forms of correct recall (verbatim/gist) of the verbal information as well as different types of errors (distortions/fabrications) were also examined. It was predicted that participants in the audiovisual modality would provide more correct information, and fewer errors than participants in the auditory-only modality. Participants' recall was predicted to be impaired over time, dropping to a greater extent after a delay in the auditory-only modality. Results confirmed these hypotheses. Interpretations of the overall findings are offered within the context of dual-coding theory, and within the theoretical frameworks of source monitoring and fuzzy-trace theory.

Frequently, the only available evidence in 'language crimes' (e.g. verbal sexual harassment) is witness statements about criminal conversations. However, previous research has showed that recall for sentences in conversation is very poor. The main aim of this research was to find out how to solve this problem. The cognitive interview (CI) is an interview technique which has shown to be more effective in recalling criminal episodes than a comparison interview. In addition, our experience in research on the CI had been highly satisfactory; therefore, we decided to use the CI as a tool in the research on memory for conversation, so far ignored. Thus, this study tested, for the first time, whether the CI would be also successful in obtaining complete and accurate accounts for a criminal conversation. Different forms of correct recall (verbatim/gist) of the verbal information as well as different types of errors (distortions/fabrications) were also examined. It was predicted that the CI would elicit more correct information without an increase in errors than a comparison interview (i.e. a free-recall protocol). Results confirmed these hypotheses. Interpretations of the overall findings are offered within the context of theoretical principles concerning the retrieval of information from memory.

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Since the Cognitive Interview (CI) was devised under laboratory conditions (Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1985), researchers have performed many experiments where a variety of variables and conditions have been reported. Nevertheless, few studies have attempted to delve into the theoretical aspects on which the CI is based. A variable that might help us to improve our understanding of why the CI works is prior knowledge of the crime context. Some studies have included familiar contexts and others unfamiliar ones, but no study has been performed to test the effect of the familiarity of the crime context as an independent variable. The aim of this research is to study the effect of prior knowledge on subjects' memory when they are interviewed by means of the CI in contrast to a Spanish Standard Interview (SSI). A significant effect of prior knowledge that subjects had of the context where the crime took place was expected, especially for those subjects who were interviewed by means of the CI. Results confirmed this hypothesis.