Cognitive Interview Technique

The Cognitive Interview (CI) is a highly effective, semi-structured interviewing technique primarily designed to maximize the amount of accurate information recalled by eyewitnesses to crimes or events.

It was developed by researchers such as Geiselman and Fisher in the 1980s as a superior alternative to the Standard Police Interview (SPI).

Standard police interviews restrict witness recall through frequent interruptions, a rigid interviewer-driven format using closed questions, and negative or leading phrasing.

This demotivates witnesses and distorts memories, highlighting why the more effective Cognitive Interview was developed to replace these systemic shortcomings.

The CI takes into account psychological findings about cue-dependent forgetting and has four stages designed to stimulate as many cues as possible in order to maximize different retrieval routes.

• Stage 1: Reinstate the context
• Stage 2: Report everything they can remember
• Stage 3: Recall events in reverse order
• Stage 4: Describe events from someone else’s point of view

Stages

The original Cognitive Interview utilizes four main techniques designed to enhance retrieval:

1. Reinstating the Context (Mental Reinstatement)

The interviewer asks the witness to mentally recreate the context of the incident before attempting to recall the events.

This includes visualizing the physical environment (weather, sights, smells, sounds) and their internal emotional state (how they felt at the time). This capitalizes on context-dependent memory to trigger recall.

In the interview, witnesses are often asked to use all of their five senses in their recollection of the event. This can help in recreating the event clearly in their mind and may trigger the recall of context-dependent memories.

This stage is heavily based on the encoding specificity principle, which dictates that memory retrieval is most successful when the cues present at the time of recall closely match those present when the memory was initially encode.

2. Reporting Everything

Witnesses are encouraged to report absolutely every detail they can remember, even if it seems fragmented, trivial, or irrelevant.

Seemingly unimportant details might act as a trigger for other crucial memories.

By encouraging unedited narration, the investigator prevents the witness from self-censoring or filtering out vital information pieces.

From a cognitive standpoint, interconnected memory webs explain this phenomenon. An obscure observation can act as an effective cue that suddenly triggers the recall of central, critical facts.

3. Reverse Order Recall

Recalling the event in non-chronological sequences prevents witnesses from relying on pre-existing cognitive schemas.

Cognitive schemas are generalized mental frameworks or expectations about how typical events unfold.

Because human memory is an active, reconstructive process, chronological narration allows individuals to fill gaps with logical assumptions. Instructing the witness to start from the climax and move backward disrupts this automated, script-driven guessing.

Consequently, the witness must isolate and examine independent memory fragments.

4. Changing Perspectives

The witness is asked to mentally view the incident from the physical perspective of someone else present at the scene, such as another bystander or a cashier.

Witnesses are asked to report the incident differently, describing what they think other witnesses (or even the criminals themselves) might have seen.

Like reverse ordering, this disrupts schema-driven memory reconstruction.

Hidden or implicit information, which means deeply buried knowledge that is not immediately conscious, suddenly surfaces during this exercise.

Flaws of the Standard Police Interview (SPI)

To understand the value of the Cognitive Interview, it is helpful to look at the shortcomings of the standard interview procedures it was designed to replace.

police interviews tend to limit a witness’s ability to recall information due to several inherent flaws:

• Constant Interruptions: In a standard interview, witnesses are interrupted an average of 11 times, often within the first 7.5 seconds of speaking. This trains witnesses to keep their answers brief and prevents them from elaborating on their memories.
• Interviewer-Driven Format: The interviewer dictates the pace and direction using closed-ended questions, which makes the witness passive and restricts them to only providing information that directly answers the specific questions posed.
• Negative Phrasing and Leading Questions: The SPI often features negative phrasing (e.g., “I don’t suppose you can tell me…”) which demotivates witnesses, as well as leading questions that can permanently distort memory.

Theoretical Foundations of the Cognitive Interview

The Cognitive Interview overcomes these flaws by relying on established principles of cognitive psychology:

1. Complex Memory Traces: Memory traces contain various kinds of information, and a single memory can be accessed through multiple different retrieval cues. If one cue fails, another might succeed.
2. The Encoding Specificity Principle: A retrieval cue is most effective if it closely matches the original context in which the memory was encoded (stored).
3. Memory as Reconstruction: Memory is not like a video recording; it is an active, reconstructive process. The CI helps piece together implicit or less obvious information without relying on generalized “schemas” (mental frameworks of expectations) that often lead to memory errors.

Geiselman (1985)

A psychology laboratory experiment conducted by Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, and Holland (1985) compared the cognitive interview with a standard police interview and hypnosis.

Aim: Geiselman et al. (1985) set out to investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview.

Method: Participants viewed a film of a violent crime and, after 48 hours, were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods:

1. cognitive interview;
2. standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police;
3. interview using hypnosis.

The number of facts accurately recalled and the number of errors made were recorded.

Results: The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 41.2, for hypnosis it was 38.0 and for the standard interview it was 29.4.

There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition.

Conclusion: The cognitive interview leads to better memory of events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared with a traditional interview method.

Critical Evaluation

Evidence of Effectiveness

Extensive research supports the efficacy of the Cognitive Interview (CI):

• Increased Accurate Recall: In initial tests, Geiselman et al. (1985) found that the CI produced 40% more correct statements than the standard police interview. Fisher et al. (1987) demonstrated that the Enhanced CI yielded an average of 57.5 correct statements compared to 39.6 in standard interviews.
• Real-World Application: A field study with the Robbery Division of the Miami police showed that detectives trained in the ECI elicited 46% more statements from witnesses, with over 90% accuracy.
• Meta-Analytic Support: A comprehensive meta-analysis by Köhnken et al. (1999) encompassing over 50 studies found that the CI elicited 41% more correct details than standard interviews.
• Most Effective Components: Research by Milne and Bull (2002) discovered that while all individual CI techniques improved recall, combining “report everything” and “reinstate the context” produced better results than any other combination of the techniques.

Limitations and Criticisms

Despite its success, the Cognitive Interview has several recognized limitations:

• Increases in Inaccurate Information: While the CI drastically increases accurate recall, it can also lead to a slight increase in errors. Köhnken et al. (1999) found that witnesses using the CI produced 61% more errors than those in standard interviews, indicating that police must still carefully verify the information obtained.
• Vulnerability to Misleading Information: The CI is generally ineffective at reducing the adverse effects of misleading information that a witness might have been exposed to after the event (post-event information). Therefore, it is critical that witnesses are not exposed to misleading questions even if a CI is planned.
• Time-Consuming and Resource Intensive: Establishing rapport, allowing for free recall, and guiding a witness through multiple perspectives takes significantly more time than a standard interview. Furthermore, conducting a CI requires specialized training that many police forces lack the resources to provide.
• Requires Cooperative Subjects: The CI assumes a willing and motivated respondent. It is generally not useful or applicable when interviewing uncooperative suspects.
• Time Sensitivity: The CI is less effective at enhancing recall when there are long retention intervals (delays) between the event and the interview. It works best when administered as soon as possible.

Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI)

To further improve upon the original model, Fisher and Geiselman (1987, 1992) developed the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI).

The ECI retains the four core mnemonic stages but embeds them into a much broader, 13-phase structure designed to improve the overall experience for the interviewee.

Structural Framework and Mnemonic Phases

The ECI utilizes a comprehensive 13-phase structure to guide investigators systematically.

The ECI retains the original four mnemonic principles (reinstating the context, reporting everything, recalling in different orders, and changing perspectives) but integrates them into a much broader 13-phase structure.

These structural changes place a heavy emphasis on the first two principles—reinstating the context and reporting everything—to improve the overall experience and comfort level of the interviewee.

Within this comprehensive framework, the core memory techniques are specifically mapped to distinct phases of the interview:

• Phase 4: Mentally reinstating the original context.
• Phase 5: Reporting the event in its entirety.
• Phase 8: Adopting the physical perspective of another person present at the scene.
• Phase 9: Recalling the event in a different narrative order.

 Core Communication and Social Skills

In addition to its structured phases, the ECI incorporates a robust set of basic communication and social skills designed to create an affective rapport with the witness and optimize information retrieval.

These skills directly combat the flaws of standard police interviews, where witnesses are typically interrupted an average of 11 times, often within the first 7.5 seconds of speaking.

The critical skills woven into the ECI include:

• Building a trusting rapport to help the witness relax and actively trying to reduce the eyewitness’s anxiety.
• Utilizing key listening skills, avoiding judgmental or personal comments, and following up with interpretive comments instead.
• Encouraging spontaneous recall and inducing the eyewitness to speak slowly.
• Using an open-ended question format and carefully attempting to fit the order of questioning to the witness’s own natural order of experiencing the event.
• Pausing after responses and strictly avoiding interrupting the witness, which prevents the disruption of memory retrieval.
• Minimizing distractions in the environment to enable intense concentration.
• Tailoring language to uniquely suit the individual eyewitness by assessing their linguistic and cognitive competence.
• Asking for detailed accounts and actively encouraging the use of mental imagery.
• Always reviewing the eyewitness’s description of the events or people under investigation to ensure accuracy.

Evidence of Effectiveness and Real-World Application

Extensive laboratory and field research demonstrates the overwhelming superiority of the ECI over standard interviewing techniques:

• Laboratory Success: In early tests, Fisher et al. (1987) found that the ECI was highly effective, eliciting an average of 57.5 correct statements, compared to just 39.6 statements yielded by a basic interview.
• Field Application: To test practical utility, Fisher, Geiselman, and Amador (1990) conducted a field study involving detectives from the Robbery Division of the Metro-Dade Police Department in Miami. Detectives trained in ECI techniques produced a 46% increase in the number of statements obtained from victims and witnesses. Furthermore, where confirmation was possible, over 90% of the statements were deemed accurate.
• Meta-Analytic Support: A review of 27 experiments by Bekerian and Dennett (1993) confirmed that the CI is universally superior, producing about 30% more accurate information on average, with false information actually being slightly less common. A larger, comprehensive meta-analysis by Köhnken et al. (1999) encompassing over 50 studies found that the technique led to the recall of 41% more correct details compared to standard interviews. A 2010 meta-analysis by Memon et al. also further validated the robust effectiveness of the ECI and its modified variants.

Limitations and Criticisms

Despite its tremendous forensic success, the ECI has several acknowledged limitations:

• Highly Time and Resource Intensive: Conducting an ECI is incredibly time-consuming. It requires extensive training for interviewers to execute properly, and the actual interview demands significant time dedicated to rapport-building and allowing for unhurried, free recall. If the ECI is used inaccurately or administered by untrained personnel, its benefits are nullified.
• Vulnerability to Misleading Information: Studies like Centofanti and Reece (2006) demonstrate that the ECI is largely ineffective at reducing the negative effects of misleading post-event information. Witnesses exposed to false information after the crime will still incorporate it into their memory, highlighting the critical need for police to shield witnesses from misleading data prior to conducting an ECI.
• Decreased Efficacy Over Time: The technique is less effective at enhancing recall when there are long retention intervals (delays) between the crime and the interview (Geiselman & Fisher, 1997). Therefore, it works best when administered as soon as possible after the event.
• Need for Modifications: The ECI must be carefully adapted for specific populations. For instance, interviewers must assess the cognitive competence of child interviewees, leading to the development of the “Modified Cognitive Interview,” which is specifically tailored to be more suitable for interviewing children and individuals with learning difficulties.
• Increases in Errors: While the ECI drastically increases the volume of correct information, it can also lead to an increase in incorrect details. Köhnken et al. (1999) noted that eyewitnesses using the CI produced 61% more errors than those in standard interviews, indicating a small cost in overall accuracy.

References

Fisher, R. P., Chin, D. M., & McCauley, M. R. (1990). Enhancing eyewitness recollection with the cognitive interview. National Police Research Unit Review, 6 (3), 11.

Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory enhancing techniques for investigative interviewing: The cognitive interview . Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., MacKinnon, D. P., & Holland, H. L. (1985). Eyewitness memory enhancement in the police interview: Cognitive retrieval mnemonics versus hypnos is. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70[2], 401-412.

Kebbell, M. R., Milne, R., & Wagstaff, G. F. (1999). The cognitive interview: A survey of its forensic effectiveness. Psychology, crime and law, 5(1-2), 101-115.

Wright, A. M., & Holliday, R. E. (2007). Interviewing cognitively impaired older adults: How useful is a Cognitive Interview? Memory, 15 (1), 17-33.

Further Reading