"I keep six honest working men, they taught me all I know, their names are WHAT, WHY and WHEN, and HOW and WHERE and WHO" Rudyard Kipling.

During the 1980's researchers investigated the value and use of interviews and the product of this stream of work was the new Cognitive Interview (CI), which was based on memory principles and theories behind trace retrieval and was designed to steer the interviewee into giving more accurate and vivid biographical accounts. It stresses that it is the style of the interviewer influences the amount of information that is obtained by subjects. The CI's success is improved when the interviewer is trained in the technique. A CI also helps the subject give a more complete and intelligent account/response, helps the interviewee comprehend and record this response and understand the account. The Dynamics of the CI are designed so that the interviewee does most of the talking and mental work. The questions asked should be open rather than closed (eg. "What did you do?" is better than "did you do this?"). The participant has all the relevant information and so they must be interviewed in the way that gets the most out of them.

Geiselman et al (1985) wanted to improve upon the standard interview procedure that was used by the police when interviewing eyewitnesses to a crime and was developed to get more detail from the individual than the standard interview did. The CI asks the interviewee to

. Recreate the context and physical and psychological stimuli, focus their concentration (and minimise the distractions in the situation)

2. Encourage extensive memory retrieval by increasing memory attempts recalling as much as possible and of any perceived importance

3. Recalling the memories in a different order

4. Recalling the memories from a different perspective using multiple form and representations.

Geiselman et al (1985) compared the CI with standard interviewing techniques used by police officers. In their study, undergraduate students were shown training films of simulated life threatening situations depicted a number of scenarios modelled on real life events. 48 hours later experienced police investigators who were naïve to what was shown to the students interviewed them. Whether the interviewer or the interviewee actually understood the CI technique is unknown and the reaction from those involved is also unknown. Each subject's transcribed report was scored blind for

(1) The number of correct items recalled

(2) The number of incorrect items recalled

(3) The number of confabulated items recalled.

Geiselman et al found that most of the 'key' information was remembered and thirty five percent more information was recalled in the CI than the standard interview although there was little difference between incorrect recalls or confabulations. Representative samples of the general public using the same technique have suggested that the cognitive interview is not dependent upon the age of the interviewee or their level of education.

Memon and Bull (1991) believed that much of the efficiency of the CI derives from the context reinstatement technique and they assert that police working with the CI method also believe that rather than from the others, context reinstatement facilitates memory recall. In the same paper Memon and Bull argue that using different perspectives often helps child witnesses to recall events by 'pretending to be someone else' who has around the event. However, Payne, 1987 (as cited in Memon and Higham, 1996) found that there was not a significant difference between the four individual components of the CI and this has been replicated several times (Memon 1996).

The CI works on the assumption that the interviewee wants to cooperate with the interviewer. However, in real life situations this quite often is not the case. Hernandez-Fernaud and Alonso-Quecuty (1997) tested the CI against the tradition Spanish standard interview technique. It is important that the interviewee can discriminate between truths and lies during the interview because of the implications generated. They confirmed that the CI produced more accurate information with fewer errors although physical descriptions of people were less accurate than the SI technique. But this has been found in Memon and Bull (1995), Memon (1995) amongst others. False details were reduced using the CI.

In later papers, Geiselman and Fisher (1988) added further techniques to the original interview, and this later formulation became known as the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (or ECI). The ECI allows the interviewee to do the talking and dictate the agenda through a transfer of control and open questioning.

Geiselman (1996) reviewed the work on the CI and stated that the CI has a great deal of potential as an investigative tool. The ECI has made even more progress, improving interviewing techniques even more but the success of the ECI relies heavily on the interviewers ability to communicate in conjunction to the techniques involved. Why most agree, there is no running away from the flaws it may have, as evidence suggests. It has shown to increase questioning time, fatigue and the cognitive demands on the interviewer and participant. Geiselman et al found that memory increased using the technique and that the number of false interruptions in memory were reduced although this isn't always the case as some studies have found a greater amount of false interruptions (Mello and Fisher, 1996). Today, the cognitive interview is in use by the police and also amongst other professions in the USA and the UK with studies and practice showing how the CI can be very effective in increasing the amount of information recalled by a witness, without increasing the associated level of confabulation.

AIM

To investigate whether the cognitive interview increases the total amount of information recalled.

HYPOTHESIS

Participant's memory recall will be significantly improved when an interviewer uses the cognitive interview technique as compared to using the standard interview technique.

INTRODUCTION