The Cognitive Interview and Eyewitness Credibility

Since 1992, England and Wales have adopted PEACE (Planning and Preparation, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluation) as a framework for forensic interviewing, with the Cognitive Interview (CI) procedure as one of the most well-researched and widely acknowledged interview style for increasing information recall in witness interviews (Fisher et al., 1987; Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Memon et al., 2010). However, a number of problems associated with the application of the CI procedure have been reported in ‘real life’ police interviews (e.g. time consuming, complex) with some of the CI components not applied at all (Dando et al., 2008). To address these concerns, the Structured Interview Protocol (SIP) was recently developed to compliment the PEACE model with the objective of enhancing the quality of the evidence while decreasing retrieval time (Gabbert, Hope, McGregor, Ellis, LaRooy, & Milne, In Press). This ‘ideal’ practice model works through the same five stages of PEACE to elicit information from witnesses via simple and effective evidence-based steps. For example, the administration of SIP involves a number of steps based on memory theory relating to how we access episodic memories (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). These steps include no interruptions, making the interviewee feel that there is unlimited time for recall and detailed responses, encourage the interviewee to mentally recreate the psychological and physical environment at the time of the event (descriptions of the environment, the people, smell). Based on these steps, it is likely that the SIP will reflect greater analytic thinking and authenticity, will be less cognitively demanding reflected exclusive words, motion verbs will produce longer responses, more perceptual, spatial and temporal

Many of today’s interrogation models being utilized in police investigations have an impact on false confessions. The model that has been in the public eye recently is the social psychological process model of interrogation known as the “The Reid Technique.” There are two alternatives used by the police today to replace the Reid Technique, one is the PEACE Model and the other is Cognitive Interviewing. These methods are not interrogation techniques like Reid but interview processes.

There has been considerable interest and study in the accuracy or inaccuracy of the use of eyewitness testimonies in the current criminal justice system. Results collated by several studies add to the bulk of literature suggesting that the current usage of eyewitness testimony by the legal system is far from ideal. Currently, high emphasis is being placed on reviewing and reconsidering eyewitness accounts (Leinfelt, 2004). In particular, recent DNA exoneration cases have substantiated the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people (Wells & Olson, 2003). In this essay, the use of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system will be explored, with a particular focus on the impreciseness of this practice.

Eyewitness misidentification can pose a serious threat in forensic evidence. Eye witness testimony can easily be tampered with due to words or phrases used. Bias is a major issue in identification especially if the police officer uses suggestive tones to portray whom they believe is the suspect. Some witnesses will change their opinion when they hear new information of the suspect. A study has shown that words can play a major impact in the witness' mind and cause them to recall false information. False information can also stem from human memory, age, distance, and how long it took before a witness could recall the information. It has been shown that due to the confidence that a witness may have, it could impact the court systems' reliability on the witness; however, there are several solutions that can be done to prevent misidentification in the court of law. Some examples that can be done are blind administration, lineup composition, instructions, confidence statements, and

First, the human memory does not record all information like a video recorder. Mistaken eyewitness testimony is one of the major causes of wrong conviction. Events of crimes, will have so much stress or focus on a weapon, than the face of criminal (Wrongful Convictions , n.d.). The victim’s or eyewitness’s memory can be changed with an easy simple suggestion. Police procedure dealing with key witnesses by a “show up”. This is showing the suspect in a physical or a picture line up. The confidence of accuracy of identification and exhibited by the witness is a “crucial determinant of believability” by jurors (Furman, 2003). The best result of eyewitness testimony is taken identification immediately. The

There are many different factors that play a part in the increased chance of a witness correctly identifying a suspect. Such factors should be brought to the attention of the jury and the judge to help in properly assessing whether a witness is correctly identifying a suspect. A study by Magnussen, Melinder, Stridbeck, & Raja (2010) found that of the three different types of people: judge, jury, and general public, that for the most part all where fairly ill-informed on the reliability of eyewitness testimony with judges having the most. Judges only had about an 8% difference in knowledge when compared to jurors. With this information it is very clear that education on the reliability of eyewitness testimony needs to become more of a general knowledge information for the everyone, especially people who are involved in upholding the law. Another factor to look into when evaluating the accuracy eyewitness testimony is the role that memory plays. Memory is divided into three processes: perceiving, remembering, and recalling information (Simmonsen, 2013). There is plenty of room in all three of those stages to forget or falsely remember something. Some factors that play a part when a person perceives an event is the amount of time they are exposed to the event and the suspect. A study conducted by Horry, Halford, Brewer, Milne, & Bull. (2014) found that witnesses were increasingly more likely to correctly identify a suspect if they had been exposed to the suspect for sixty

In this paper I’m going to discuss the psychological issues that are used in prosecutors cases such as eyewitness identification, issues that have led to the wrongful convictions of defendants, and what is done to overturn these wrongful convictions. I will also start by defining eyewitness identification. Eyewitness identification is a person whose identification by sight of another person may be relevant in a criminal proceeding. (GS_15A-284.52.)

When an interrogation subject does not tell the truth, creating and remembering a fictional story places a heavy load on their mental faculties. They must continually calculate whether their story is cohesive. When Criminal Justice investigators question these subjects, increasing this load will increase the physical responses the subject exhibit, which helps investigators predict whether the person is telling the truth. A practice investigators use to accomplish this is to have the subject tell the story from end to beginning. This makes it difficult for the subject to recall details that match the fictional story timeline. Additionally, the investigators can request that the subject sustain eye contact. When a subject is recalling a fictional recount, looking away helps them focus on remembering their story.

In sum, we can conclude that eyewitness memory still hold important place in investigation and prosecution process yet it is flawed. Based on research that I reviewed in this paper, there are several aspects that important to enhance eyewitness memory such as the repetition and precision-accuracy trade off. In contrast there are some factors that can threatens quality of memory such as such as avoiding co-witness situation, less focus on the confidence level to measure accuracy and delayed effect. These factors need to be prioritize to create a better environment to recall accurate information.

Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.

Thank you for participating in our IB Psychology Internal Assessment. The study being replicated was Loftus et al.’s “Weapon Focus” (1987) experiment. In this study, Elizabeth Loftus, Geoffrey Loftus, and Jane Messo tested the validity of the “weapon focus” phenomenon on Reconstructive memory recall, specifically in the context of criminal eyewitness testimony. “Weapon focus” is a phenomenon that describes how witnesses to crimes have a high concentration on the weapon used in the crime and a reduced ability to remember other details about the crime. They tested this phenomenon by showing subjects either a video depicting a person pulling a gun on an employee or a video of a person giving the employee a check, and after a fifteen-minute retention

Witness perception and recall can be a very tricky hill to climb. The goal of the investigator in interviewing a witness or an accused is to gather as much additional information as they can, while at the same time trying to mitigate their own influence in how the interviewee shares events. The interviewer should never be suggestive or manipulative in how they ask questions.Effective questioning on the part of the interviewer comes in 2 basic forms – closed and open-ended questions. Close ended questions are good for gathering exact details and asking clarifying questions. Often, they are questions that only have one specific answer. They do little in contributing to the natural flow of a conversation, though they serve well in the beginning of the interview to establish a routine and set expectations. On the other hand, open-ended questions are appropriate for getting the subject talking. These are questions that involve

In “Bloodlines,” Prentiss tells a crime survivor that she’s going to assist her to recall details by using a “cognitive interview.” This forensic technique focuses on the retrieval of information from memory. Its aim is to mentally reinstate the context of the incident in order to assist a witness to recall every possible detail in the right order (Cambell, John, and DeNevi, 2004). To start such an interview, the interview invites free recall with an open-ended question. When the witness is finished, the interviewer returns to

I think cognitive interviewing is a more appropriate approach for criminal investigations since it increases the amount of information recalled of a witness without increasing the

A victim who police have taken hekto police station gives testimony. She looks at a man in a police lineup and says, "That's the person which saw in my car." During the trial, the woman gives her testimony in front of the jury, and the jury makes a decision. Soon, the man goes to jail. However, it is possible the woman whose her testimony was used is wrong. Researchers that now claim that the eyewitness stories what courts often rely on are not always reliable. which Psychologists have conducted experiments who revealed some surprising results. They played a crime scene video for participants and then asked the participants to remember details. Results showed that participants often described events, which they knew nothing about and had not