Facilitating children's eyewitness recall with the revised cognitive interview.

Abstract

Eighty-six 2nd-grade children participated in a Simon says game with an unfamiliar adult. The children were subsequently interviewed twice with either a standard interview or the revised cognitive interview (CI), once within 3 hr of the event and then 2 weeks later. On both the initial interview and the 2-week delayed interview, children receiving the revised CI recalled significantly more correct information than did children receiving a standard interview. In addition, children who were interviewed twice with the revised CI recalled more unique accurate facts (M = 25.44) than children who received 2 standard interviews (M = 16.75). The CI also elicited more inaccurate facts; however, the accuracy rate (proportion of reported facts that were accurate) for the 2 groups was equivalent. The research has implications for police and others who interview real child victims and witnesses.

Reducing Suggestibility in Child Witness Interviews

“…In the current study, the SI was developed along the lines of a 'child-centred' interview with a great deal of emphasis upon effective communication (as set out in the Memorandum of Good Practice, 1992). A future study comparing the version of the SI used in this study with various other control procedures (see McCauley and Fisher, 1995) and using different age groups would shed further light on the efficacy of the SI used here.…”

Interviewing children in custody cases: Implications of research and policy for practice

“…Often protocols include an instruction that conveys to children that accuracy, completeness, and honesty are important in the legal context (Lamb et al, 2008;McCauley & Fisher, 1995;Saywitz, Geiselman, & Bornstein, 1992). Children are instructed to talk about what really happened, not to make things up, and to report even the little things they might not think are important.…”

“…(Saywitz, Snyder & Nathanson, 1999). In the Cognitive Interview, children are asked, ''Tell me what happens when you brush your teeth '' (McCauley & Fisher, 1995). In all of these studies, interviewers taught children to expect to elaborate in their own words in response to open-ended prompts (''What happened next?…”

Providing eyewitnesses with initial retrieval support: what works at immediate and subsequent recall?

“…In these studies, CI performance was compared with standard interview (SI; i.e., an interview with less retrieval support) performance on several recall attempts (e.g., Brock, Fisher, & Cutler, 1999;McCauley & Fisher, 1995;Memon, Wark, Bull, & Köhnken, 1997). Completing the CI at T1, relative to the SI, did not influence memory performance at T2 (i.e., there were no carry-over effects from T1 to T2), irrespective of the type of T2-interview used.…”