3 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE EWT 1.Anxiety 2.Age of Witness 3.Misleading Information What research/studies are associated with each of the factors below… Coxon & Valentine (1997) – Age Parker & Carranza (1989) Coxon & Valentine (1997) –M.I. Loftus & Palmer (1974) - Car Crash Loftus (1979) – Pen/Knife Study Yuille & Cutshall (1968) – Case Study Riniolo et al., (2003) – Titanic Study

HOW TO IMPROVE THE ACCURACY OF EWT

IMPROVING EWT  Because eye witness testimonies are often inaccurate (due to the 3 factors we have looked at), psychologists have worked with police to develop methods for improving witnesses memories.  First method involved improving the way police question witnesses…

FISHER (1987)  Looked at how real police men/women interviewed their witnesses.  He was shocked at what he saw…  Task1: Read first paragraph on your sheet;  Pick out three mistakes that the real detectives were making when interviewing witnesses.  Explain why each one is a mistake.

COGNITIVE INTERVIEW  On the basis of what Geiselman saw, he developed a new interviewing method…The Cognitive Interview  The CI uses 4 techniques:  Context reinstatement;  Report everything;  Recall from changed perspective;  Recall in reverse order.

THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW  Context reinstatement - trying to mentally recreate an image of the situation, including details of the environment, such as the weather conditions  Report everything – the interviewer encourages the witness to report all details about the event, even though these details may seem to be unimportant.  Recall from changed perspective – trying to mentally recreate the situation from different points of view eg describing what another witness present at the scene would have seen.  Recall in reverse order – the witness is asked to recall the scene in a different chronological order eg from the end to the beginning.

THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW  Task 2: In your own words, use the space provided on your handout to summarise the four cognitive interview techniques…

ACTIVITY  Get into pairs. One of you is the witness and one of you is the interviewer. The interviewer must think of an event that happened in their childhood that they can vaguely remember.  The interviewer must try to get the witness to recall as much as possible using the 4 techniques from the CI.  What technique worked the best and why do you think this is?

SUPPORT FOR THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW Geiselman (1985) showed 89 students videos of a simulated crime:  2 days later these students were interviewed by detectives using either standard police interviewing techniques or the new Cognitive interview schedule.  Each interview was taped and analysed for accuracy of recall.

RESULTS - MEAN NUMBER OF ITEMS RECALLED  What can you conclude from these results? Cognitive Interview Standard Interview Correct items recalled Incorrect items recalled

WHAT IS A BIG PROBLEM WITH THE STUDY?  Lacks Ecological validity – witnesses are just watching a crime on a screen which is not the same as watching a crime in real life.

FISHER ET AL (1989) Demonstrated the effectiveness of the CI using real police and real witnesses in Florida.  What type of experiment did he use?  He got 16 experienced detectives to record a selection of their interviews using the standard interviewing technique (88 interviews were recorded).  He then spilt the detectives into two groups, one group was trained in CI techniques, the other was not.  After training the interviews were recorded by the two groups and analysed by a ‘blind’ team.

RESULTS  The trained detectives elicited 47% more information after they had CI training.  In terms of accuracy no significant difference between the CI and standard interview was found.

HOMEWORK – THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW  Read ‘The Cognitive Interview’ handout and complete the exam question, highlighted on page 2 (see below).  Due: Next Lesson - This question will be peer-assessed at the start of next lesson. Jun 09, Q1, 6 marks. Cognitive interviews have been developed to improve witness recall. Identify and explain two techniques used in the cognitive interview.