Cognitive interview vs. Police interrogation

In this article, continuation of the psychology of testimony, we will deal with some issues related to the techniques of obtaining the statements of witnesses, victims or suspects. Specifically, the Cognitive interview, as technique used by expert forensic psychologists in the criminal and criminal area.

Content

• Police interrogation or standard interview
  • Types of questions in the standard interview
    • Each of these types of closed questions has its own problems
• Cognitive interview
  • What is the cognitive interview?
    • The advantages of the cognitive interview against the standard are
    • The disadvantages of the cognitive interview
  • References

Police interrogation or standard interview

Traditionally, the so -called standard interview have been used. To obtain information, for example, in the police sphere. In a standard interview two phases are differentiated:

• Narrative phase: where a simple question is asked: what happened? either Tell me what you remember. The information obtained in this phase is characterized by its accuracy. There is no risk of induction of the response from the interviewee. However, this is accompanied by enormous poverty of details
• Interrogative phase: The interviewee answers specific questions with the aim of alleviating that poverty of details. However, there are certain risks that depend on the type of question formulated and its internal structure

Types of questions in the standard interview

They differ Two major categories of questions:

• The Open questions They require an extensive statement. It would be the type of questions that are asked during the narrative phase
• The closed questions are those that are answered with few words. The authors differentiate them in three types:
  • Identifier: They require the description of people, places, moments .. .
  • Selection: multiple alternative questions from which an answer must be selected.
  • But: They respond only with a yes or a no.

Each of these types of closed questions has its own problems

• But: Affirmative bias. It tends to always answer if, regardless of the content of the question.
• Selection: The risk of contamination is greater. An answer is being inducing him that can be false.
• IDENTIFICATOR: They can contain post-Event information that contaminates the memory of the interviewee. Eg. What was the gun? You can lead to a description of a weapon that you never saw and from now on you will remember seeing. The weapon may exist in the erroneous story of another witness.

So that, The risk of closed questions that occur in the second phase of the standard interview is that the question can be suggestive. That is, indicate which is the desired answer. This leads us to a conclusion:

There is the possibility of asking biased questions that induce a false answer in the interviewees. All this has led some experimental psychologists to elaborate an alternative interview procedure that allows you to obtain a maximum of information without risk of suggesting the answer. This technique is known as Cognitive interview.

Cognitive interview

The cognitive interview is based on 2 widely accepted memory principles.

1. Memory strokes are composed of various characteristics and The effectiveness of the memory depends on the amount of features related to the event that have been encoded
2. There is a great variety of clues that facilitate memory or different ways to recover the codified event. Information that is not accessible on one way can be for another.

Fisher and Geiselman (1992) propose some requirements from which to understand the procedure of the Cognitive interview:

1. Minimize distraction sources unnecessary since the memory demands concentration.
2. The memory is influenced by thoughts, emotional reactions, psychological state and the physical environment that existed during the event. Recreating this context at the time of the interview can be very useful.
3. If the witness is wrong or does not remember a detail, This does not mean that the rest of the information you have given is unreliable.

What is the cognitive interview?

It consists of 4 general techniques plus a few complementary ones to remember the details.

1. Context reinstatement: It consists in mentally rebuilding the physical and personal context that existed at the time of crime. Eg. Physical details of the scene, its emotional reactions, describe sounds, smells, temperature, luminosity, etc.
2. Inform everything: You are asked to tell everything you remember, including apparently irrelevant information.
3. Perspective change: The witness is requested to be put in another place of the scene and to report what I would have seen (objective, recover the greatest number of details).
4. Remember in different order: It consists of the witness remembering the event following different order. Eg. Start telling it from the end or half.
   • Auxiliary techniques for the memory of details (Only if necessary):
     1. Physical appearance Did the attacker remember someone known? Was there something unusual on your face?
     2. Names: If you think a name was given but you can't remember it, try to remember the first letter, the number of syllables.
     3. Conversations and speech traits: If unusual or foreign words were used, someone spoke with an accent or stuttering .. .

Research shows how the cognitive interview allows you to obtain more accurate information about people, objects and situations while not increase errors.

The advantages of the cognitive interview against the standard are

• Obtaining very rich information
• The security in which this information has not been biased by the interviewee

The disadvantages of the cognitive interview

• Its temporary cost and its complexity
• It makes necessary interviewers training

References

• Godoy, v., & Higueras, L. (2005). Forensic application of the cognitive interview: description, evolution and current situation. LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY YEARBOOK, fifteen, 41-54.
• González Álvarez, J. L., & Ibáñez Peinado, J. (1998). Police application of the cognitive interview. Clinical and Health, 8(1), 61-77.
• Hairstyle, j. Yo. (2008). The cognitive interview: a theoretical review. Legal and Forensic Clinical Psychopathology, 8(1), 129-160.