Memory – Improving Eye Witness Testimony
Memory – Improving Eye Witness Testimony
Courses Info
IMPROVING EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY
| KEY TERM | DEFINITION |
| Standard Police Interview | A procedure for police interviews of witnesses to facilitate accurate and detailed recall |
| Enhanced Cognitive Interview | The established method of questioning witnesses that overcomes problems caused by inappropriate sequencing of questions |
| Modified Cognitive Interview | An amended form of the Cognitive Interview |
| Encoding Specificity Theory | Memory traces are made up of several features.
As many retrieval cues as possible should be used. Context reinstatement (emotional + sensory) |
| Confabulation | A disturbance of memory, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive
e.g Dementia |
The Cognitive Interview (CI)
| COMPONENT | DESCRIPTION |
| Change of recall order | Recall the event in different chronological order |
| Recall from a changed perspective | Recall the event from different people’s perspectives |
| Context reinstatement | Recall both the environmental and emotional context of the event |
| Report everything | Recall all information, even which seemingly has little relevance or that which is remembered less confidently / seems incomplete |
The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (EHI)
| COMPONENT | DESCRIPTION |
| Minimise distractions | Allows person getting interviewed to concentrate a lot and focus specifically on the question |
| Reduce anxiety | Optimum level of anxiety is most beneficial |
| Encourage witness to speak slowly | More relaxed and they can give proper answers |
| Ask open ended questions | Allows interviewer to collect as much information / detail from the person being interviewed |
Research
Fisher & Gieselman (1992):
- To improve recall in police interviews
- Increase the amount of recalled information
- Reduce a witness’s use of prior knowledge, expectations, and schemas – increase quality / accuracy of recalled information
Fisher (1991):
- Woman passed two men in a lobby
- Those men went onto commit murder
- Only the woman witnessed them
- She struggled to recall information
- Fisher was called in as an expert
- Cognitive interview resulted in a breakthrough – she remembered one of the men brushing his hair out of his face and seeing a silver earring
Evaluation
| STRENGTHS | WEAKNESSES |
| Applicable – scientifically proved to gather more information | Time consuming |
| Modifications of Cognitive Interview make comparisons difficult | |
| ECI seems to be more efficient but is prone to false positives – incorrect items are remembered | |
| Geisselman (1999) – children under 8 recall falls LESS accurately using CI compared to other interview techniques |
Exam Questons
Q1) Describe and evaluate at least one wat of improving eye witness recall (16 marks)