Issue 3/4 Vol. 33 1991

The cognitive interview: a new interrogation technique in eyewitness testimony

SPORER, S. L., FRANZEN, S.

Eyewitness testimony plays a central role in criminal and civil legal proceedings. While traditional approaches to the psychology of eyewitness testimony have primarily studied the sources of eyewitness errors (so-called estimator variables) an alternative approach has focussed upon factors that are likely to improve eyewitness recall (control or system variables). The latter idea has been inherent in the use of hypnosis to enhance the memory of witnesses. However, a critical analysis of these studies reveals that hypnosis may increase the number of correctly recalled details but only at the cost of a concomitant rise in errors and confabulations. In contrast, the cognitive interview, a new interrogation technique that has been derived from basic memory research on context reinstatement, has been empirically demonstrated to drastically improve eyewitness recall of correct information without necessarily increasing error rates. A new variant of the cognitive interview, the revised cognitive interview, boosts these advantages even further by utilizing the principles of a multi-component model to human memory. Experimental studies as to the effectiveness of these new techniques are reviewed. We conclude that despite these promising results still little is known about the relevant factors that are likely to be responsible for the effects observed.

Keywords: eyewitness testimony, cognitive interview, interrogation technique, human memory

Short Title: Sporer, S. L. (1991) PsyBeit 3-4:407

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