Witness Interview Training: a Field Evaluation

MacDonald, Sarah; Snook, Brent; Milne, Rebecca

doi:10.1007/s11896-016-9197-6

Cited by 30 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Third, witness-generated segmentation of an event into its component parts is consistent with witness-compatible questioning (e.g., MacDonald, Snook, & Milne, 2017) in that it provides scaffolding for the individual processing styles of autistic (and indeed TD) witnesses (e.g., Pellicano & Burr, 2012) and allows the interviewee to revisit topics in the order that they have first recalled them. Paulo, Albuquerque, and Bull (2016) and Paulo, Albuquerque, Vitorino, and Bull (2017) recently developed an additional component of the CI whereby witnesses are explicitly instructed to organise their episodic recall semantically rather than temporally, on the basis that recalling a crime event in category clusters may be more compatible with an individual witness' mental organisation of the event.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims

Maras

Dando

Stephenson

et al. 2020

Autism

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Autistic people experience social communication difficulties alongside specific memory difficulties than impact their ability to recall episodic events. Police interviewing techniques do not take account of these differences, and so are often ineffective. Here we introduce a novel Witness-Aimed First Account interview technique, designed to better support autistic witnesses by diminishing socio-cognitive and executive demands through encouraging participants to generate and direct their own discrete, parameter-bound event topics, before freely recalling information within each parameter-bound topic. Since witnessed events are rarely cohesive stories with a logical chain of events, we also explored witnesses’ recall when the narrative structure of the to-be-remembered event was lost. Thirty-three autistic and 30 typically developing participants were interviewed about their memory for two videos depicting criminal events. Clip segments of one video were ‘scrambled’, disrupting the event’s narrative structure; the other video was watched intact. Although both autistic and typically developing witnesses recalled fewer details with less accuracy from the scrambled video, Witness-Aimed First Account interviews resulted in more detailed and accurate recall from autistic and typically developing witnesses, for both scrambled and unscrambled videos. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique may be a useful tool to improve autistic and typically developing witnesses’ accounts within a legally appropriate, non-leading framework. Lay abstract Autistic people may be more likely to be interviewed by police as a victim/witness, yet they experience social communication difficulties alongside specific memory difficulties that can impact their ability to recall information from memory. Police interviewing techniques do not take account of these differences, and so are often ineffective. We developed a new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses, referred to a Witness-Aimed First Account, which was designed to better support differences in the way that autistic witnesses process information in memory. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique encourages witnesses to first segment the witnessed event into discrete, parameter-bound event topics, which are then displayed on post-it notes while the witness goes onto freely recall as much information as they can from within each parameter-bound topic in turn. Since witnessed events are rarely cohesive stories with a logical chain of events, we also explored autistic and non-autistic witnesses’ recall when the events were witnessed in a random (nonsensical) order. Thirty-three autistic and 30 typically developing participants were interviewed about their memory for two videos depicting criminal events. Clip segments of one video were ‘scrambled’, disrupting the event’s narrative structure; the other video was watched intact. Although both autistic and non-autistic witnesses recalled fewer details with less accuracy from the scrambled video, Witness-Aimed First Account interviews resulted in more detailed and accurate recall from both autistic and non-autistic witnesses, for both scrambled and unscrambled videos. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique may be a useful tool to improve witnesses’ accounts within a legally appropriate, non-leading framework.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims

Maras

Dando

Stephenson

et al. 2020

Autism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Indeed, officers receive training according to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Interview Strategy (Poyser, & Milne, 2015). Training is also provided to investigators through the widely adopted PEACE framework, a mnemonic used for Planning and preparation / Engage and explain / Account / Closure / Evaluation (MacDonald, Snook, & Milne, 2016). It is to be hoped that through this advanced interview training successful police work will no longer be defined by the number of confessions or convictions achieved (Walker, 2011).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cognitive Interview and Enhanced Cognitive Interview in Financial Forensics and Intestigations

Eisenberg

2019

Journal of Contemporary Research in Social Sciences

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Background-Psychological research on witness interviewing focuses on the cognitive interview (CI) and the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI), as developed in the eighties and refurbished in the early nineties. It is argued that the CI/ECI techniques outperform the standard interview (SI) approach. Given the complex structure of human memory and psychology, the interviewing techniques best suitable for witness interviewing have remained controversial among the academia since that time. Aims-This scholarly paper aims to contrast the standard interview, the cognitive interview and the enhanced cognitive interview approach in order to make recommendations for further psychological research and police interviewing practice. Furthermore, the approaches are evaluated in light of vulnerable witnesses like children, persons with intellectual disabilities and the elderly. Methodology-The settings of witness interviewing, the problems surrounding investigation officers' and criminal court practice, as well as the interviewing techniques are assessed by the way of literature review. Laboratory and field studies covering the period of 1984 to 2013 are discussed, representing previous research. Results-The CI/ECI techniques help in obtaining more information of higher accuracy from invulnerable and vulnerable witnesses (save for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) interviewees) as compared to the SI approach. Conclusion-As the CI/ECI techniques require training and the development of social skills, more educative efforts are necessary to establish the CI/ECI approaches among the investigation officers. From the viewpoint of future research, supporting the implementation in the field can be considered a worthwhile task.

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“…A inexistência desses treinamentos tem impacto não apenas para testemunhas, mas também em entrevistas com suspeitos que podem diminuir a possibilidade de obter informações úteis para o processo investigativo 50 . Nesse sentido é necessário capacitar e supervisionar profissionais acerca de seus procedimentos de entrevista e reconhecimento de suspeitos, de forma em que possam verificar quais pontos estão sendo implementados corretamente, e quais ainda necessitam ser aprimorados 51 .…”

Section: Repetibilidade Da Prova Penal Dependente Da Memóriaunclassified

A (Ir)repetibilidade Da Prova Penal Dependente Da Memória: Uma Discussão a Partir Da Psicologia Do Testemunho

Cecconello

Ávila

Stein

2018

RBPP

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Provas dependentes da memória de uma testemunha podem ser as única evidências de que um crime ocorreu. Entretanto, os procedimentos utilizados em oitivas de testemunhas ou reconhecimentos de suspeitos podem alterar a memória original do fato. Tais riscos são ainda maiores dado que no Brasil provas dependentes da memória humana são consideradas provas repetíveis. A repetibilidade desta prova não leva em conta o possível esquecimento de informações, ou a inserção de informações pós evento, que modificam a memória original. Este artigo visa apresentar as capacidades e limitações das provas dependentes da memória humana, comparando como a legislação e procedimentos utilizados para produção dessas provas por atores de justiça. Ao final, são discutidas políticas públicas que podem auxiliar a diminuir a distância entre conhecimento científico e práticas adotadas no nosso país. Se por um lado não é possível mudar o funcionamento da memória humana, é imprescindível pensar em mudanças no sistema de justiça que ajudem a preservar esta prova que deveria ser considerada irrepetível.

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Witness Interview Training: a Field Evaluation

Cited by 30 publications

References 31 publications

The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims

The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims

The Cognitive Interview and Enhanced Cognitive Interview in Financial Forensics and Intestigations

A (Ir)repetibilidade Da Prova Penal Dependente Da Memória: Uma Discussão a Partir Da Psicologia Do Testemunho

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