Enhancement of Eyewitness Memory with the Cognitive Interview

Geiselman, R. Edward; Fisher, Ronald P.; MacKinnon, David P.; Holland, Heidi L.

doi:10.2307/1422492

Cited by 326 publications

(409 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…One reason for the effectiveness of the CI in obtaining a description of an event or a face is that recall is fragmentary in nature and more complete accounts are obtained with multiple recall attempts and subsequent prompting (e.g. Geiselman et al, 1986). With facial composites, better recall is of assistance in locating individual facial features within a composite system.…”

Section: Advantages Of the H-cimentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the quality of facial composites using a holistic cognitive interview.

Frowd¹,

Bruce²,

Smith³

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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Improving the quality of facial composites using a holistic cognitive interview Running head: Holistic Composite Construction Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied AbstractWitnesses to and victims of serious crime are normally asked to describe the appearance of a criminal suspect, using a Cognitive Interview (CI), and to construct a facial composite, a visual representation of the face. Research suggests that focussing on the more global aspects of a face, as opposed to its facial features, facilitates recognition and improves composite quality; also, that the CI enables more effective use of a composite system. The current study evaluated a novel 'holistic' Cognitive Interview (H-CI). This comprised a descriptive phase, using a CI, followed by a recognition-enhancing phase, involving the attribution of seven holistic properties. Participant-witnesses watched a video of a target, then 3-4 hours later received either a CI or an H-CI and constructed a single composite with a standard system, PRO-fit. Composites constructed after the H-CI were correctly named more than four times as often as those after the CI, attributable to an improvement in the quality of both the internal and external parts of the face. In police work, the H-CI offers the possibility of substantially improving the identification of criminal suspects. (180 words) Acknowledgement This research was supported by a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/C522893/1). The authors would like to thank Cindy Frowd, for her insightful comments on an early draft of the paper, as well as three anonymous reviewers.

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Section: Advantages Of the H-cimentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the quality of facial composites using a holistic cognitive interview.

Frowd¹,

Bruce²,

Smith³

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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“…Indeed, exposure to context information 24 h prior to an interview can have the same beneficial effects as exposure to the context during the interview (Priestley et al, 1999). Mental context reinstatement has also been studied as a key component of the CI that was developed in the early 1980s in an attempt to improve the quality of police interviews with adult witnesses (Geiselman et al, 1984). The primary aims were to increase both the quantity and the quality of information elicited from cooperative witnesses, victims, and suspects (Geiselman et al, 1984;Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1985.…”

Section: Probing Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mental context reinstatement has also been studied as a key component of the CI that was developed in the early 1980s in an attempt to improve the quality of police interviews with adult witnesses (Geiselman et al, 1984). The primary aims were to increase both the quantity and the quality of information elicited from cooperative witnesses, victims, and suspects (Geiselman et al, 1984;Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1985. Since then, the CI has been modified for field settings as well as for children.…”

Section: Probing Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Making the most of information‐gathering interviews with children

Larsson

Lamb

2008

Infant and Child Development

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Because child abuse victims are often the only available sources of information about their experiences, extensive efforts have been made to understand how to maximize their informativeness. There is now broad international consensus regarding optimal interview practices, and broad awareness that children's informativeness increases when interviewers conduct developmentally appropriate interviews with children. In this paper, we (1) summarize current understanding of how children remember, retrieve, and communicate information and (2) discuss ways in which children's memory and reporting can be fostered using techniques designed to help children recount past experiences such as the Cognitive Interview, the Narrative Elaboration Technique, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development-Protocol. Communicative success clearly depends on how well children understand their role and how effectively interviewers take advantage of children's competencies and abilities to help them maximize their informativeness. Unfortunately, agreement regarding ways in which interviews should be conducted has not been paralleled by changes in the way interviews are actually conducted in the field and more attention thus needs to be paid to training and implementation. Copyright r 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Key words: interviews with children; child abuse victims; interviewing techniques Reliable information about experienced events can be obtained from children as young as 4 years of age provided interviewers converse with and question them carefully and appropriately, adapting their techniques to accommodate children's needs and capacities. This can be especially important when interviewing alleged child abuse victims because they are often the only sources of information about the crimes in question. This places the children in

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“…Inaccurate or incomplete testimony can lead to wrongful conviction or acquittal (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996) and so reliable interviewing techniques are imperative in eliciting the most detailed yet accurate reports from witnesses. The Cognitive Interview (CI) is now one of the most widely used and accepted forms of interviewing in both the US and the UK (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992;Geiselman, 1984), and is currently taught to all police recruits in the UK (Dando & Milne, 2009). The CI has been shown to elicit detailed, yet accurate, reports from adult witnesses (Davis, McMahon & Greenwood, 2005;Kohnken, Milne, Memon & Bull, 1999), children (Geiselman & Padilla, 1988;Memon, Wark, Bull & Koehnken, 1997), older witnesses (Wright & Holliday, 2007b) and witnesses with learning disabilities (referred to in the US as mental retardation) (Milne, Clare & Bull, 1999 The Cognitive Interview (CI) is based on two basic principles of how memory typically operates; that retrieval of an event will be enhanced if the context experienced at recall matches that experienced during encoding (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992;Roediger, Weldon, Challis, & Craik, 1989; Tulving & Thompson, 1973), and that memories are stored as interconnected nodes that provide multiple retrieval routes (Tulving, 1974).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recall of trivial or incomplete details is encouraged ('report all' instruction) since important facts may be elicited that co-occurred with seemingly unimportant events (Geiselman, Fisher, Mackinnon, & Holland, 1986). CR is followed by QU in which…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cognitive Interview for Eyewitnesses with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Maras

Bowler

2010

J Autism Dev Disord

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. The cognitive interview for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder Eyewitness evidence is central to the criminal justice system. In 2007, 1.78 million UK offenders were found guilty or cautioned (UK Ministry of Justice, UK, 2008) and 87% of police officers indicated that eyewitnesses usually or always provided major investigative leads (Kebbell & Milne, 1998). Inaccurate or incomplete testimony can lead to wrongful conviction or acquittal (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996) and so reliable interviewing techniques are imperative in eliciting the most detailed yet accurate reports from witnesses. The Cognitive Interview (CI) is now one of the most widely used and accepted forms of interviewing in both the US and the UK (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992;Geiselman, 1984), and is currently taught to all police recruits in the UK (Dando & Milne, 2009). The CI has been shown to elicit detailed, yet accurate, reports from adult witnesses (Davis, McMahon & Greenwood, 2005;Kohnken, Milne, Memon & Bull, 1999), children (Geiselman & Padilla, 1988;Memon, Wark, Bull & Koehnken, 1997), older witnesses (Wright & Holliday, 2007b) and witnesses with learning disabilities (referred to in the US as mental retardation) (Milne, Clare & Bull, 1999 The Cognitive Interview (CI) is based on two basic principles of how memory typically operates; that retrieval of an event will be enhanced if the context experienced at recall matches that experienced during encoding (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992;Roediger, Weldon, Challis, & Craik, 1989; Tulving & Thompson, 1973), and that memories are stored as interconnected nodes that provide multiple retrieval routes (Tulving, 1974). On the basis of these principles the CI was the external (physical) and internal (subjective) states that they experienced during the witnessed event before freely reporting as many details of the event as possible. Permanent repository link:Recall of trivial or incomplete details is encouraged ('report all' instruction) since important facts may be elicited that co-occurred with seemingly unimportant events (Geiselman, Fisher, Mackinnon, & Holland, 1986). CR is followed by QU in whichwitnesses are asked open-ended questions based on what they said during their first free-recall attempt. Further details are elicited by asking witnesses to summon and describe mental images of the event, for example focusing on the best image they have of the victim in order to describe their clothing. During CO witnesses are then asked to recall the events in a different order, for example starting with the last thing they witnessed and working backwards in detail until they report the first thing they witnessed. Finally, the witness is asked to recall the event from a different perspective (CP), for example from the perspective of another person or imagining they were positioned in a different location (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). All four of these mnemonic strategies elicit more detai...

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Enhancement of Eyewitness Memory with the Cognitive Interview

Cited by 326 publications

References 19 publications

Improving the quality of facial composites using a holistic cognitive interview.

Improving the quality of facial composites using a holistic cognitive interview.

Making the most of information‐gathering interviews with children

The Cognitive Interview for Eyewitnesses with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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