Recap of factors affecting EWT

1. What is the weapon focus effect?

2. Describe what changes happen to your body when you are in a state of high
anxiety
3. Describe the positive effect anxiety can have on accuracy of recall using a
supporting study
4. Describe the negative effect anxiety can have on accuracy of recall using a
supporting study
5. Outline the method and results of a study looking at the negative effects of
anxiety on recall
6. Outline the Yerkes-Dodson Law
7. Outline the findings of a study into the effects of leading questions on
accuracy of eyewitness testimonies
8. Evaluate this study
 Lesson 9
Improving the
accuracy of EWT:

Cognitive interview

Ms Guven
Quick Recap

• The 3 factors that can affect the accuracy of EWT are:

1) Misleading information
2) Post-event discussion Discuss with the person next
3) Anxiety to you how we can improve
the accuracy, based on
everything we know + theories
on forgetting
• So the next question arises
• ‘How can we improve the accuracy of EWT?’
 A01
• One method improving the accuracy of EWT
is conducting Cognitive Interviews
• Developed by Eysenck and Keane (2010) 1. How is a cognitive
interview different to a
standard interview?
• This technique can be used by police when
interviewing eye witnesses, which encourages 2. Why is this method so
them to recreate the original context in order important in psychology?
to increase the accessibility of stored
information.
 Cognitive interview: 4 techniques
1. Report everything: encouraged to report everything that they remember
even if it feels like it is insignificant

2. Reinstate the context: Need to imagine the crime scene in their mind
and remember the environment, feelings they had at the time, the weather,
sounds around them (related to context –depend forgetting)

3. Reverse order: recall the same information in a different order.

4. Change perspective: Explain the story from someone else's view point/
for the point of view of the criminal
 4 Techniques
It is important that in the exam, you can give an example of what the interviewer could say
for each of the 4 techniques

E.G Report everything

‘Can you please tell us everything you can remember about the event, it does not matter if
you may think it is insignificant’

Task: for the other 3 remaining techniques, give a standard statement the interviewer could
say to the eyewitness

Extension: why does changing the perspective and order change work??
 Why does it work?
When we tell a story, we follow a logical order
e.g. start from beginning, middle to end

When we forget something that happened in the middle, our brain fills in
this gap, as it makes sense
e.g. if you are explaining what you did in the morning you may forget what
you had for breakfast, but your brain fills in that you did have breakfast

In a cognitive interview, asking the eye witnesses to change the order of

the story means that they cannot rely on their brain to fill in gaps, therefore
the recall is more accurate!
 Enhanced cognitive interview
• Developed by Fisher et al (1987)
• Has a few additional elements from a cognitive interview and focuses
on social interactions
• Including:
1. Using eye contact effectively
2. Reducing anxiety
3. Letting eye witness speak slowly
4. Minimal distractions
5. Asking open ended questions
 A02 - Application
Murder in the pub
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_QbTX2qS10&list=PLC434A768A82BD959

Task: Imagine you are a police officer interviewing eye witnesses to find out about
this case.
In your pairs one of you will be a police officer, the other is an innocent eye
witnesses.
Conduct a COGNITIVE interview with the eye witness.
You will be asked to perform so make sure you are prepared!
Challenge: Can you secretly add elements of an enhanced cognitive interview,
lets see if the class will pick up them.
 A03 evaluation  what are some of the
pros and cons of using a cognitive
interview?
Task:
Use the textbook page to make notes on the strengths and weaknesses of
using a cognitive interview

Extension:
What are some other ways that eyewitness testimonies can be made more
accurate?

Challenge: How is age related to EWT accuracy?

 Exam question practice

• Possible content:
• reverse order: ‘Please tell me everything you can remember about the robbery,
starting from the point the girl was robbed back to the beginning of the video’
• change perspective: ‘Tell me everything that the boyfriend/another shopper saw
when the robbery took place.’
• context reinstatement: ‘Tell me how you were feeling at the time you watched
the video of the robbery.’
• The instructions must relate to the technique that is identified.
• If no technique is identified credit the instructions if they are appropriate
− Max 2 marks.
Possible content:
•this reduces the likelihood of investigator effects/research
bias
•this would mean that she is more likely to get a range of
students in her sample, not just psychology students
•the likelihood of demand characteristics might be reduced,
improving internal validity
•her sample would be more representative of the student
population and allow her to make a wider conclusion about
the effectiveness of the cognitive interview.
•the teacher would select a random sample using either a
hat/lottery/computer method and a list of all the Year 12
students.
Correct workings:
13 + 13 + 11 + 8 + 11 + 14 + 11 + 13 + 15 +
18 = 127
127/10 = 12.7
Answer = 13.

Possible limitations:
•requires special training and police forces do not have
enough time to invest in training the officers to use it
• reference to research support suggesting not all aspects of
the cognitive interview are as useful as others, e.g. Milne and
Bull (2002)
• amount of inaccurate information gathered is also increased,
e.g. Köhnken et al., (1999)
•not all techniques are appropriate for use with children, e.g.
change perspective not possible until children are no longer
egocentric.
Psychology homework
• Complete paper 1 practice paper

• Due 21st JUNE (Wednesday)

 A03 Example PEELS
P - One disadvantage of using cognitive interviews is that it can be more
time consuming than standard police interviews.
E- For example, some research has found that more time is needed to allow
eyewitnesses to feel comfortable before starting the interview. Also, in order
to carry out a cognitive interview the police officers need to be trained.
E- This is a limitation because…

L-
 A03 Example PEELS
P- An advantage of using cognitive interviews is that there has been research
evidence that shows it effectiveness.
E- For instance, a meta-analysis has found that a cognitive interview enhanced
the accuracy of recall significantly more than a standard police interview (41%
more accurate)
E- This is a strength because…

L- Therefore meaning that…

 A03 Example PEELS
P - Furthermore, although there has been supporting evidence for the
effectiveness of cognitive interviews on improving the accuracy of EWT, most
of the supporting evidence is from lab studies that uses a volunteer sample.
E- For instance, researchers asked college students to participate in an
experiment where cognitive interviews were conducted following the students
being exposed to a clip of an incident.
E- This is a problem because….
 A03 Example PEELS
P- Another limitation is that cognitive interviews also lead to an increase in
inaccurate information being reported.
E- For example, research has found that while there was an 81% increase in
correct information, there was also a 61% increase in the reporting of incorrect
information, when compared to a standard police interview.
E- This is a limitation as it suggests that…

L-