1. The Enhanced Cognitive Interview
Prof. Becky Milne
Institute of Criminal Justice Studies

2. Agenda Why do we need the CI? What is the CI? How effective is the CI?
Problems inherent in the police interview
The enhanced CI
Conclusions

3. James Stewart (1985) Director, US National Institute of Justice.
“Information is the lifeblood of criminal investigation and it is the ability of investigators to obtain useful and accurate information from witnesses and victims of crime that is crucial to effective law enforcement. Yet full and accurate recall is difficult to achieve.
James Stewart (1985) Director, US National Institute of Justice.

4. What is an investigator’s job: reactive investigation?
Two Primary investigative questions:
What happened? If anything did happen?
Who committed the offence?
Milne and Bull (2006)

5. How do investigators answer these two primary investigative questions?
Gather information from a number of sources (Kebbell & Milne, 1998)
People
Interview is pivotal
Performance measure: quality and quantity of information
Interviewer behaviour

6. Why the Cognitive Interview?
The elicitation of complete and accurate witness accounts may determine whether or not a case is solved
The need to identify and develop techniques that police investigators can themselves use in questioning witnesses
To use memory theory and research for the development of the techniques

7. Human memory Selective attention Types of memory
Memory is constructive
Emotional effects
Questioning: changing one word in a question can alter the response you gain

8. Theoretical assumptions
Multicomponent view of a memory trace: there are several retrieval paths to memory for an event and information not accessible with one technique may be accessible with another Tulving (1974)
Encoding specificity principle: a memory trace comprises several features and a retrieval cue is effective to the extent that there is an overlap between the encoded input trace and the retrieval cue Flexer and Tulving (1978)

9. What is the Cognitive Interview?
Geiselman and Fisher (1984)
Aims to increase the quantity and quality of information elicited from witnesses/victims and/or suspects of crime
UK: introduced as part of the Investigative Interviewing package in 1992
Four main techniques

10. Cognitive Interview Techniques
Context reinstatement
Report everything
Change order
Change perspective

11. Contextual effects
Context - Physical Evidence - Godden and Baddeley (1975) learned list of words on land or under water recall was better where the list was learnt
Context - emotional Evidence - Bower (1981) State dependent learning
Context - mental reinstatement Evidence - Williams and Hollan (1981)

12. The mental reinstatement of context
This instruction asks interviewees to reconstruct in their minds the context, both physical (environmental) and personal (for example how they felt at the time) features of the event.

13. Report Everything Instruction Explicit instruction including the words:
no editing
even unimportant / trivial details
partial details

14. How does the report everything instruction help?
intimidation - waste police time
investigative value
help the reporting from detailed memory level
confidence
partial
consistency

15. Extensive retrieval More retrieval attempts the more recall
Witnesses should be encouraged to do this
Use a variety of strategies Varied retrieval strategies Probing different senses
Vital to allay fears that this is because interviewee is not being believed

16. Recall in a variety of temporal orders
Reverse order recall
Memorable aspect of the event “We are going to try something which sometimes helps people remember more. What I am going to ask you to do is to tell me what happened but this time backwards. What was the last thing you can remember?…What happened just before that?…”

17. Recall in a variety of temporal orders: Why does it help memory?
Memory is constructive
Script-inconsistent information
Unique details
Crime linking details

18. Change perspectives technique
People report from their own psychological perspective “OK we are going to try another technique which may help memory, but do not guess at information, only report what you saw. Go through the event again but in the shoes of ….”

19. How effective is the CI?

20. Field Study: Fisher et al (1987)

21. Problems inherent in actual police interviews (Fisher et al, 1987)
Universal problems Interrupting Excessive use of question-answer format Inappropriate sequencing of questions
Other problems Negative and non-neutral phrasing Inappropriate language Lack of follow up of potential leads Under-emphasis of all senses Overuse of leading questions

22. Why change the original CI?
Research on conventional police interviewing methods
field research with police officers and real life witnesses
incorporate the psychology of communication

23. The Enhanced Cognitive Interview
Greet and establish rapport
Explain the aims of the interview report everything transfer control
Context reinstatement
Initiate free report
Witness compatible questioning activate and probe an image
Recall in a different order
Change perspectives
Closure

24. How effective is the ECI in lab?
The original CI
25% - 35% more correct information (Kohnken, Milne, Memon & Bull, 1999 – meta- analysis; Memon, Meissner & Fraser, 2010)
The enhanced cognitive interview % more correct information (Fisher et al, 1987)

25. Conditions with which the memory enhancing effect of the CI has been demonstrated
Interviewees Interviewers Event
Students Students Staged
Police officers Police officers Films
Professionals Naive interviewers Real
Vulnerable groups

26. Why poor witness interviews and lack of use of the ECI- field research
Why poor witness interviews and lack of use of the ECI- field research? – Clarke & Milne 2002
Training issues
Focus on suspects
Lack of assessment
Practical issues
Time at scene
Tool belt approach
Recording issues
Interviewer driven and agendas

27. Dando, Wilcock and Milne (2008): front-line interviewing
Study 1 – perceptions of 221 young in service, front-line officers
Used & effective Not used & ineffective
Rapport Mental context
Uninterrupted account Reverse order
Interview process Change perspectives
Report everything Witness compat Q

28. Dando, Wilcock and Milne (2009): front-line interviewing
Study 2
48 new recruits (Tier 1) interviewed
mock witness interview paradigm
Students as interviewees
Shop till theft
2 day delay
What say they do not actually what they do
Sketch plans

29. %age Used Attempted Not used Free recall 98 02 00 Rapport 48 21 31
Explain 40 29
WCQ 27 36 37
report everything 10 42
Never guess 17 81
Mental Context 06 73
Concentration 04 92

30. Dando, Wilcock and Milne (2009): use of sketch plans

31. Control Sketch MRC Correct 27.90 (5.51) 34.65 (8.71) 39.00 (6.44)
Incorrect
02.95 (2.54)
02.75 (1.58)
03.50 (1.39)
Confabs
01.30 (0.86)
00.35 (0.49)
01.35 (1.09)
% Accuracy 85 92 89
Time
8.4
10.1
12.2

32. Conclusions: the future
Front-line interviews:
Dando, Wilcock, Milne & Henry (2009): quick and not too complex
the SAI – Hope, Gabbert and Fisher (2011)
Body-cam research – Gabbert et al (in prep) - SIP
Detecting deceit (Vrij et al 2008)
New techniques? – time-line – Hope et al
Types of crime?
Interpreters