Information Enhancement and Credibility Assessment of Child Statements: The Impact of the Cognitive Interview Technique on Criteria-Based Content Analysis

Interviewing children with the cognitive interview: Assessing the reliability of statements based on observed and imagined events

“…Taken together, the results from previous research suggest caution regarding forensic application of the CBCA system (e.g., Lamb, Sternberg, Esplin, Hershkowitz & Orbach, 1997a;Ruby & Brigham, 1997;Vrij, 2000). Steller and Wellershaus' results show that the CI reduced the discriminating power of the CBCA technique, and they suggest that the use of the technique should be avoided whenever the statements are obtained by the use of a CI (Steller & Wellershaus, 1996). One possible explanation for this result is that the CI mnemonic "mental reinstatement" may result in very vivid statements no matter if they are based on real or imagined events (Granhag, Allwood & Jonsson, 2004;Gwyer & Clifford, 1997).…”

“…In addition, the few studies conducted show an inconsistent result pattern. Steller and Wellershaus (1996) examined whether the CI affects the validity of the technique called Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), when discriminating between children's statements based on real and imagined events. The CBCA is a list of criteria developed to systematically quantify the credibility of children's accounts (Steller & Köhnken, 1989).…”

Assessing children's statements: the impact of a repeated experience on CBCA and RM ratings

“…First, the frequencies of each criterion in the statements were rated 2 (Vrij, 2000). Second, the more commonly used three-point scale was applied for each of the 19 CBCA criteria and the 12 RM criteria: 0 ¼ Absent; 1 ¼ Present; and 2 ¼ Strongly present (see Sporer, 1997;Steller & Wellershaus, 1996).…”

Value of Content-Based Deception Detection Methods

“…For example, the application of cognitive interview decrease the effi ciency of RM in the studies conducted by Bembibre and Higueras (2011), and especially so in the case of testimonies concerning false accusations. Steller and Wellershaus (1996) observed a major drop in CBCA accuracy rate in the case of false testimonies collected with the use of cognitive interview as compared to the testimonies acquired during a standard interrogation. Although the studies conducted by Köhnken, Shimossek, Ashermann, Hoff er (1995) did not corroborate the impact of the manner of interrogation on the general accuracy rate of CBCA, yet it was observed that some CBCA criteria emerge more frequently in true and false statements acquired during a cognitive interview than in ones acquired during a standard interview (SI).…”