Examining witness interviewing environments

Hoogesteyn, Katherine; Meijer, Ewout H.; Vrij, Aldert

doi:10.1002/jip.1549

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…homes (Hoogesteyn et al, 2020a). At this time, then, the overall neutrality expressed by our respondents is reasonably aligned with the current evidence until further research is conducted.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

A broken tandem

Vilar

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

A broken tandem

Vilar

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“…Participants were recruited from the general population and were unfamiliar with eyewitness research but were made aware that memory was important and would be assessed. This demand characteristic is present with real witnesses who understand the importance of their memory performance (Fisher et al, 2017 ; Geiselman & Fisher, 2014 ; Hoogesteyn et al, 2020 ) and the need to provide detailed information. Further limitations stem from our operationalisation of a series of basic techniques, thus reducing a multifaceted social behaviour to individual components.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They were interviewed about the video 48 hours later. In the UK and elsewhere, other than for the most serious crimes, witnesses are not usually interviewed immediately (see Hoogesteyn et al, 2020 ; Hope et al, 2011 ). Rather, for more common “volume” crime events such as depicted in the stimulus video used here, delays in interviewing can often range from several hours to several days.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interviewing in virtual environments: Towards understanding the impact of rapport-building behaviours and retrieval context on eyewitness memory

et al. 2022

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Given the complexities of episodic memory and necessarily social nature of in-person face-to-face interviews, theoretical and evidence-based techniques for collecting episodic information from witnesses, victims, and survivors champion rapport-building. Rapport is believed to reduce some of the social demands of recalling an experienced event in an interview context, potentially increasing cognitive capacity for remembering. Cognitive and social benefits have also emerged in remote interview contexts with reduced anxiety and social pressure contributing to improved performance. Here, we investigated episodic memory in mock-eyewitness interviews conducted in virtual environments (VE) and in-person face-to-face (FtF), where rapport-building behaviours were either present or absent. Main effects revealed when rapport was present and where interviews were conducted in a VE participants recalled more correct event information, made fewer errors and were more accurate. Moreover, participants in the VE plus rapport-building present condition outperformed participants in all other conditions. Feedback indicated both rapport and environment were important for reducing the social demands of a recall interview, towards supporting effortful remembering. Our results add to the emerging literature on the utility of virtual environments as interview spaces and lend further support to the importance of prosocial behaviours in applied contexts.

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“…The sample size was based on a predicted large effect size, which has practical relevance in an applied setting. We considered the approach to be appropriate and in line with similar research in the investigative interviewing literature (e.g., Hoogesteyn et al ., 2020; Kontogianni et al ., 2018). However, given the sample sizes in each condition ( N = 32, 33 and 34), a larger sample would be needed to detect smaller effects, and significant differences between conditions, in the post‐hoc analyses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of cognitive load during an investigative interviewing task on mock interviewers’ recall of information

Hanway

Akehurst

Vernham

et al. 2020

Legal Criminol Psychol

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Purpose. Although investigative interviewers receive training in interviewing techniques, they often fail to comply with recommended practices. Interviewers are required to actively listen, accurately remember information, think of questions to ask, make judgements, and seek clarification, whilst conducting interviews with witnesses, victims, or suspects. The current study examined the impact of increased cognitive load on mock interviewers' recall of a witness's account. Method. Participants took the role of an investigative interviewer in one of three conditions, high cognitive load (HCL), moderate cognitive load (MCL), or no cognitive load (NCL). Participants watched a video-recorded free narrative of a child witness during which they followed condition-relevant task instructions. Each participant rated their perceived cognitive load during their task and then recalled (free and cued recall) the content of the witness's account. Results. Participants in the HCL and MCL conditions perceived higher cognitive load and demonstrated poorer performance on the free recall task than those in the NCL condition. Participants in the HCL condition demonstrated poorer performance on the cued recall task compared to participants in the NCL condition. Conclusions. The cognitive demands required to complete an investigative interview task led to an increased perceived cognitive load and had a negative impact on recall performance for mock interviewers. Accurately recalling what has been reported by a witness is vital during an investigation. Inaccurate recall can impact on interviewers' questioning and their compliance with recommended interviewing practices. Developing and practising interview techniques may help interviewers to better cope with the high cognitive demands of investigative interviewing. Despite having knowledge of, and receiving training in, recommended interviewing techniques, interviewers in real-world settings do not always follow best practice guidelines (Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorate, 2014; Powell & Barnett, 2015; Schreiber-Compo et al., 2012). Such guidelines generally recommend a range of interviewing techniques that have been developed from decades of international research for use in This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Examining witness interviewing environments

Cited by 8 publications

References 30 publications

A broken tandem

A broken tandem

Interviewing in virtual environments: Towards understanding the impact of rapport-building behaviours and retrieval context on eyewitness memory

The effects of cognitive load during an investigative interviewing task on mock interviewers’ recall of information

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