Post on 07-Dec-2018
Universidade do MinhoEscola de Psicologia
outubro de 2016
Rui Miguel de Medeiros Paulo
The Cognitive Interview: New Procedures to Enhance Witnesses' Statements and Evaluate Report Accuracy
Rui
Mig
uel d
e M
edei
ros
Paul
o T
he
Co
gn
itiv
e I
nte
rvie
w:
New
Pro
ced
ure
s to
En
ha
nce
W
itn
ess
es'
Sta
tem
en
ts a
nd
Eva
lua
te R
ep
ort
Acc
ura
cy
UM
inho
|201
6
Governo da República Portuguesa
Universidade do MinhoEscola de Psicologia
outubro de 2016
Rui Miguel de Medeiros Paulo
The Cognitive Interview: New Procedures to Enhance Witnesses' Statements and Evaluate Report Accuracy
Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia Básica
Trabalho efetuado sob a orientação doProfessor Doutor Emanuel Pedro Viana Barbas de Albuquerque e do Professor Raymond Henry Charles Bull
v
Agradecimentos / Acknowledgments
Embora espere ter tido a oportunidade de o deixar claro ao longo dos últimos anos, e
não me considere particularmente competente na escrita deste tipo de textos, não posso deixar
de agradecer formalmente a todos aqueles que tornaram possível a realização deste projeto.
Em primeiro lugar agradeço ao Professor Pedro Albuquerque pelo excelente apoio
prestado ao longo deste, e de outros, projetos, nomeadamente pela irrepreensível disponibilidade
para discutir ideias, esclarecer dúvidas e aceitar novas propostas de investigação, mesmo que
um pouco distintas da sua linha de investigação principal. Estou convicto que seria impossível ter
tido uma melhor orientação ao longo deste projeto e considero a nossa colaboração presente,
passada, e estou certo que futura, extremamente gratificante.
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Ray Bull for countless reasons.
I’m very honored that he agreed to advise this project despite his busy schedule with many other
projects and collaborations. His guidance was crucial for this research project, but I would also
like to thank him for taking additional time to welcome me in England and meet me for lunch or a
pint. As I said above in Portuguese, I could not have wished for better advisers!
I would like to thank Professor Becky for her help and support with this research
project. Furthermore, I would like to thank her for welcoming me in Portsmouth and being always
so kind to me. I would also like to thank Eva, Tomás, Niko and Hartmut for being good colleagues
and friends, welcoming me in Portsmouth, and borrowing me their houses, bicycles, and guitars!
Agradeço também ao Grupo de Investigação em Memória Humana da Universidade do
Minho pela troca de ideias, debate científico e conselhos.
Agradeço à minha família, nomeadamente à Fabiana, aos meus pais (Eulália e João),
irmão (João) e avós (Amarilde, Gracinda e João), por todas as razões que embora pudessem
estar também no início deste texto, são melhor expressas num jantar que se avizinhe.
Gostaria ainda de agradecer aos meus amigos mais próximos e pedir desculpa por
algum esquecimento (embora já estejam certamente habituados).
Por fim, gostaria de agradecer à “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” de Portugal
que financiou este projeto (Referência: SFRH/ BD / 84817/2012).
vi
vii
Title
The Cognitive Interview: New Procedures to Enhance Witnesses’ Statements and
Evaluate Report Accuracy
Abstract
Crime witnesses’ reports can determine the success of a police investigation or forensic
assessment (Fisher, 2010). However, witnesses’ reports rarely fully correspond with what
happened or even with what witnesses memorized (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2013). Among
other social and communicative factors, many processes inherent to human memory can explain
why errors and omissions are common in witnesses’ testimonies (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010).
Nonetheless, using inappropriate interview techniques, sometimes common in police and
forensic interviews, augments this problem often leading to poor testimonies (Milne & Bull,
1999).
To obtain the best possible report from witnesses, Fisher and Geiselman (1992)
developed an interview protocol drawn from theoretical principles and research concerning
human memory for interviewing cooperative witnesses: the Enhanced Cognitive Interview. This
interview protocol is now commonly referred to as the Cognitive Interview or CI and has been
extensively studied, adapted and used by police forces in various countries (e.g. England and
Wales), typically eliciting informative and accurate reports (Paulo et al., 2013). Nevertheless,
research on witness interviewing or on the Cognitive Interview in Portugal is very limited.
Cooperation among professionals (e.g., police and research teams) is also very rare in Portugal
and disclosure or evaluation of police interview protocols is seldom conducted (Paulo,
Albuquerque, & Bull, 2014).
This first article included in this thesis critically addresses these aspects while also
thoroughly describing the Cognitive Interview, theoretical assumptions that justify its use, and
summarizing some of the prior research on this subject. Thus, the first article presented in this
thesis is a brief literature review to acquaint the reader with some of the research on this subject,
address the Portuguese reality with regard to crime witness interviewing, and present the first
published Portuguese protocol for applying the Cognitive Interview.
The second article included in this thesis evaluates the effectiveness of a Cognitive
Interview protocol we translated and adapted for the Portuguese language. As previously found
for other CI protocols (Stein & Memon, 2006), the Portuguese CI elicited more information
without compromising report accuracy. This was the first published Cognitive Interview protocol
viii
ever translated for Portuguese language, adapted and tested with a Portuguese population. In
this study, other variables of interest were addressed such as participants’ ability to evaluate their
error rate, and the impact of witnesses’ memory capacity and perception of interview
appropriateness on witnesses’ reports.
In the third article of this thesis, witnesses’ ability to spontaneously and naturally monitor
their account when interviewed with the Cognitive Interview was addressed. We found
participants were able to spontaneously monitor information they provided with the use of
uncertainty verbal expressions such as 'maybe' or 'I think' for reporting less accurate information
This research has important implications for practitioners, suggesting professionals can use
witnesses’ ability to monitor their own account during the interview as an accuracy marker.
Furthermore, this study addressed how other variables such as participants’ motivation to testify
could influence their reports.
Lastly, since new strategies for obtaining more information from crime witnesses are
crucial in this field, we developed a new interview strategy, Category Clustering Recall. This recall
strategy allowed the interviewer to obtain more detailed reports and may be useful during
investigative interviews. The effectiveness of this recall strategy was evaluated in comparison with
the change order mnemonic (forth article) and witness-compatible questioning (fifth article).
Also included in this thesis is a general conclusion section where are discussed these
studies’ contribution for developing new strategies to obtain better testimony and evaluating
report accuracy, and for further understanding the psychological variables inherent to witness
interviewing.
ix
Título
A Entrevista Cognitiva: Novos Procedimentos para Obter Melhores Testemunhos e Avaliar
a sua Precisão.
Resumo
O relato das testemunhas de um crime pode determinar o sucesso de uma investigação
policial ou avaliação forense (Fisher, 2010). No entanto, estes relatos raramente correspondem
exatamente ao que aconteceu ou até ao que as testemunhas memorizaram (Paulo, Albuquerque,
& Bull, 2013). Entre outros fatores sociais e comunicativos, diversos processos decorrentes do
funcionamento da memória humana podem explicar a razão pela qual erros e omissões são
frequentes nos testemunhos (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). O uso de técnicas de entrevista
inadequadas, por vezes ainda frequente em contexto policial e forense, exacerba esta problema
levando frequentemente à obtenção de fracos testemunhos (Milne & Bull, 1999).
Com base na investigação então existente acerca do funcionamento da memória humana
e com o objetivo de obter o melhor testemunho possível, Fisher e Geiselman (1992)
desenvolveram um protocolo de entrevista para testemunhas cooperantes: a Entrevista Cognitiva
Melhorada. Este modelo de entrevista, atualmente designado por Entrevista Cognitiva ou CI, tem
sido extensivamente estudado, adaptado e utilizado por forças policiais de diversos países (e.g.
Inglaterra e Gales) e permite obter relatos informativos com elevada precisão (Paulo et al.,
2013). Não obstante, é ainda muito escassa a investigação sobre a entrevista de testemunhas
em contexto policial e forense em Portugal, nomeadamente sobre a Entrevista Cognitiva. É
também infrequente a colaboração entre grupos de profissionais (e.g., forças policiais e equipas
de investigação) e o estatuto de reserva de divulgação dos protocolos utilizados pelos
profissionais impossibilitam o acesso e avaliação dos mesmos (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull,
2014).
O primeiro artigo desta dissertação procura abordar criticamente estes aspetos bem como
descrever pormenorizadamente a Entrevista Cognitiva, quais os pressupostos teóricos que
justificam a sua utilização, e resumir alguma da investigação existente. Trata-se assim de uma
breve revisão da literatura que pretende familiarizar o leitor com a bibliografia existente acerca
deste tema, bem como descrever a realidade portuguesa no que diz respeito à entrevista de
testemunhas de crimes. Apresentamos ainda neste artigo o primeiro protocolo publicado em
língua portuguesa para a aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva.
x
O segundo artigo incluído nesta dissertação avalia a eficácia de um protocolo para a
aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva por nós traduzido e adaptado para a língua portuguesa. Neste
estudo foi possível concluir que, tal como outros modelos de aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva
utilizados noutros países (Stein & Memon, 2006), este protocolo permitiu recolher relatos mais
informativos sem comprometer a precisão dos mesmos. Foi assim testado o primeiro protocolo
da Entrevista Cognitiva em língua portuguesa. Neste estudo avaliámos ainda a capacidade dos
participantes em predizer a sua taxa de erro, e o impacto da capacidade de memória das
testemunhas e da sua perceção acerca da adequabilidade da entrevista no seu desempenho.
No terceiro artigo desta dissertação, foi avaliada a capacidade das testemunhas em
monitorizar espontaneamente o seu relato quando utilizada a Entrevista Cognitiva. Verificámos
que os participantes foram capazes de monitorizar espontaneamente a informação prestada,
pois, quando os participantes utilizam espontaneamente expressões como ‘talvez’ ou ‘acho’ para
expressar incerteza, a informação adjacente a tais expressões é menos precisa. Esta
investigação poderá ter elevado impacto no contexto prático, sugerindo que o profissional poderá
utilizar a capacidade que a testemunha tem para monitorizar o seu relato durante a entrevista
como um indicador de precisão. Neste artigo é ainda avaliado o impacto de outras variáveis no
testemunho, como a motivação do participante para testemunhar.
Por último, e uma vez que o desenvolvimento de novas técnicas para obter mais
informação por parte da testemunha é fundamental, desenvolvemos uma nova estratégia de
entrevista, a Evocação por Categorias. Esta técnica permitiu a obtenção de mais informação e
poderá ser um procedimento vantajoso a considerar durante uma entrevista policial ou forense.
A eficácia desta estratégia de evocação foi testada comparativamente à mnemónica de mudança
de ordem (quarto artigo) e comparativamente a uma estratégia de questionamento compatível
com a testemunha (quinto artigo).
Foi ainda incluída nesta dissertação uma conclusão geral onde é discutida a importância
destes vários estudos, nomeadamente no que diz respeito à contribuição destes para o
desenvolvimento de novas estratégias que permitam obter melhores depoimentos e avaliar a
precisão dos relatos, bem como para uma melhor compreensão das variáveis de carácter
psicológico envolvidas no testemunho.
xi
List of Contents
AGRADECIMENTOS .................................................................................................. V
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. VII
RESUMO ................................................................................................................. IX
LIST OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ XI
LIST OF ABREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ XIII
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... XV
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ XVII
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 19
CHAPTER II - LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................ 27
Article1 - A Entrevista cognitiva melhorada: Pressupostos teóricos, investigação e aplicação. ...................................................................................................................................... 29
CHAPTER III - EMPIRICAL STUDIES ........................................................................ 51
Article 2 -The enhanced cognitive interview: Testing appropriateness perception, memory capacity and error estimate relation with report quality..................................................... 53
Article 3 - The enhanced cognitive interview: Expressions of uncertainty, motivation and its relation with report accuracy ........................................................................................... 75 Article 4 - Improving the enhanced cognitive interview with a new interview strategy: Category clustering recall ............................................................................................... 99
Article 5 - Enhancing the cognitive interview with an alternative procedure to witness-compatible questioning: Category clustering recal .......................................................... 127
CHAPTER IV - CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................. 147
APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................ 155
xii
xiii
List of Abbreviations
CCR: Category Clustering Recall
CI /ECI: (Enhanced) Cognitive Interview
PEACE: Planning and preparation; Engage and explain; Account; Closure; Evaluation
RCI: Revised Cognitive Interview
RECI: Revised Enhanced Cognitive Interview
SI: Structured Interview
xiv
xv
List of Tables
Table 1.1. Aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada de acordo com o modelo
“PEACE”...............……………………………………………………………………………………………..….38
Table 2.1. Proportion values (mean and standard deviation) for correct recall, errors and
confabulations, according to the interview condition......………………………………………...……..64
Table 2.2. Mean (M ) and standard deviation (SD ) values for the number of recalled units of
information in each interview phase, according to interview condition……………………….…..….64
Table 3.1. Differences between the two interview protocols: procedures only applied in the ECI
condition according to interview phase...............………………………………………………..…….….84
Table 3.2. Proportion values (mean and SD ) for correct recall, errors, and confabulations,
according to interview condition…………………………………………………………………………...…..88
Table 3.3. Proportion values (mean and SD ) for correct recall, errors, and confabulations for
‘certainties’, ‘uncertainties’, and both types of information together (overall)...……………...…..89
Table 4.1. Differences between interview conditions according to interview phase.………….108
Table 4.2. M and SD values for the number of correct units of information newly recalled in
each interview phase, according to interview condition………………………….………..………..…115
Table 5.1. Comparison between the two interview protocols (CI vs. RCI) according to interview
phase………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….134
Table 5.2. Number of newly recalled units of information, accuracy and interview time (in
minutes) according to interview condition and interview phase……………….………..………..….136
xvi
xvii
List of Figures
Figure 4.1. Number of correct units of information, errors and confabulations reported in each
interview condition...............………………………………………………………………………………..….114
xviii
19
Chapter I
Introduction
20
21
Witness interviewing is often a key procedure during police investigations and forensic
assessments and may determine the course of an investigation or its judicial outcome (Milne &
Bull, 1999; Fisher, 2010). Nonetheless, before the 1990’s research on investigative interviewing,
particularly witness interviewing, was very scarce and police officers, as well as other investigative
professionals, often had no specific training for this purpose. Therefore, interviewers used
different techniques to interview witnesses according to, for instance, their own personal and
professional experience (Fisher, Milne, & Bull, 2011). With this use of disparate interviewing
techniques of unproven efficacy, several problems emerged. For instance, professionals often
considered witness interviewing to be difficult and ineffective, only allowing the interviewer to
obtain a very limited amount of reliable information which was seldom helpful during the course
of the investigation (Shepherd & Milne, 1999). Furthermore, police officers often allocated most
of their resources (e.g., time resources) for conducting agenda-driven interviews aimed at
obtaining a confession of the crime from a suspect, thus leading to false confessions and
sometimes the imprisonment of innocent suspects (Gabbert & Hope 2013).
This panorama motivated several police officers, researchers and other investigative and
legal professionals to question if the interviewing techniques which were being used at that time
were appropriate and/or effective. Several studies found, among other problematic interviewing
techniques, frequent interruptions, rapid-fire directive questions, close-ended and leading
questions were common during investigative interviews (Fisher, Geiselman, & Raymond, 1987;
McLean, 1995). Moreover, some of these interviewing techniques, such as intimidating the
witness or frequently assessing her/ his behaviour, were not only questionable in terms of ethics,
but also very disruptive in terms of recall and overall memory performance (Shepherd & Milne,
1999). For instance, investigative professionals often asked questions which were incompatible
with the witness’ retrieval strategy or even with the sensorial modality which was being used by
her/ him to describe the crime event (Fisher et al., 1987).
Therefore, Fisher and Geiselman (1992) were asked by investigative professionals to
address this problem and develop an effective method for interviewing witnesses. With this
purpose in mind, these authors developed an interview protocol for interviewing cooperative
witnesses, the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI), which was largely based on the theoretical
assumptions and research findings regarding human memory which were available at that time.
Thus, this interview protocol initially comprised four retrieval mnemonic instructions aimed at
enhancing witnesses’ recall, which were previously published by Geiselman et al. (1984): report
everything, mental reinstatement of context, change order, and change perspective. The ECI also
included several social and communicative components, crucial for conducting appropriate
22
investigative interviews, such as rapport building, witness-compatible questioning, transferring
control of the interview to the witness, and mental imagery (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992).
Currently, the Enhanced Cognitive Interview has been systematically studied and the
efficacy of this interview protocol has been corroborated in several different countries (e.g.,
England and USA), with varying type of witness (children, adults, and elderly adults), times
between the crime and interview (from a few minutes to several weeks), and kind of event (crime,
accident, phone call, etc.), both in the laboratory and in the field (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull,
2013). Thus, the ECI is becoming ever more widely used as an interviewing technique which
enhances witnesses’ recollection. Concurrently, research and practice concerning witness
interviewing has considerably improved during the last decades, with several effective
interviewing protocols for witnesses (and suspects), as well as training and evaluation programs,
emerging in several countries such as the 1992 PEACE (Planning and preparation; Engage and
explain; Account; Closure; Evaluation) model in England and Wales, which coincidently includes
many components described by Fisher and Geiselman (1992) such as establishing rapport with
the witness, the report everything mnemonic, or the mental reinstatement of context (Griffiths &
Milne, 2010).
To this day, most ECI components are still considered to be essential for obtaining
reliable testimony and used for interviewing cooperative witnesses (Paulo et al., 2013).
Nonetheless, other ECI components such as the change order or the change perspective
mnemonics have been criticized not only in terms of efficacy (Bensi, Nori, Gambetti, & Giusberti,
2011) but also in terms of usage (Dando, Wilcock, & Milne, 2008). Thus, several authors focused
on reviewing and improving the ECI either by removing less effective components (e.g., change
perspective) or developing new interview techniques for obtaining more information from the
witness, such as the open depth instruction (Brunel, Py, & Launay, 2013). In fact, a considerable
amount of research on human memory has emerged since 1992, and using this knowledge to
develop even more effective interviewing techniques which can be added to the ECI, or added to
other interview protocols, is very important for obtaining more informative and accurate testimony
(Fisher, 2010). Furthermore, even though most ECI studies found this interview procedure to be
able to increase the quantity of information witnesses are able to report without compromising
report accuracy, finding techniques to increase or evaluate report accuracy are also very
important aspects of investigative interviewing (Brunel et al., 2013; Paulo et al., 2013). Lastly,
even though Fisher and Geiselman (1992) believe several psychological, social and
communicative variables may have an impact on witnesses’ testimony, understanding what
psychological variables and memory processes influence witnesses’ recall, as well as how these
23
variables may affect different recall measures (e.g., report size and report accuracy), is still
necessary and might help to develop more effective interviewing techniques (Fisher & Geiselman,
2010). In sum, even though there was a considerable improvement during the last decades
regarding research and practice concerning witness interviewing, more research and better
practices, particularly on the aforementioned topics, are still very valuable.
Lastly, it is important to note that witness interviewing should not only be addressed on a
global and worldwide perspective, but also on a local perspective. Even though some aspects of
witness interviewing may be studied apart from culture or other regional variables (Fisher, 2010),
other aspects may not since, for instance, a country’s legal and judicial frame might influence
what procedures can or should be used during investigative interviews (Milne & Bull, 1999).
Furthermore, the aforementioned improvement in research and practice on witness interviewing
was not identical across the world (Fisher et al., 2011). For instance, interviewer training and
evaluation is crucial for achieving better testimony, particularly when using a complex interview
model such as the ECI. Unfortunately, training and evaluation models, as well as research on
witness interviewing, are still very limited in some countries like Portugal, where an attempt to
translate, adapt and test a Portuguese version of the ECI with a Portuguese population has never
previously been made. Concurrently, cooperation between professionals (e.g., police officers and
researchers) is also atypical in Portugal and disclosure or evaluation of interview protocols is
seldom conducted or made known to the public (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2014).
Thus, the purpose of this research project and thesis is not only address witness
interviewing as a global and worldwide topic (e.g., develop new interview techniques which can
be used worldwide to enhance witnesses’ recall) but also address witness interviewing at a more
local level (e.g., create a Portuguese version of the ECI and promote professional cooperation).
The studies presented in this thesis had three main objectives: (1) developing and testing new
theory/ research driven interview procedures which can be used not only to enhance witnesses
recall, but also to evaluate report accuracy; (2) understanding which psychological variables and
memory processes directly influence witnesses’ recall and how these affect report size and
accuracy; and (3) developing and testing the first Portuguese protocol for applying the ECI, as
well as to present it and discuss it with Portuguese professionals and researchers to promote
further research, debate and cooperation amongst professionals in Portugal.
In this thesis, we first include a brief literature review which describes the ECI, the
theoretical assumptions that justify its use, and summarizes some of the research on this topic.
This first article aims to acquaint the reader with some of the prior research on witness
interviewing, present the first published Portuguese protocol for applying the ECI and address the
24
Portuguese reality with regard to research and practice on crime witness interviewing.
Afterwards, we present several empirical studies, in research article format, which address: (1)
the effectiveness of a Portuguese ECI, participants’ ability to evaluate their own error rate, and
the impact of witnesses’ memory capacity and perception of interview appropriateness on
witnesses’ reports (second article); (2) witnesses’ ability to monitor their own account when
interviewed with the ECI as well as participants’ motivation to testify influence on their reports
(third article); and (3) the efficacy of a newly developed interview strategy, Category Clustering
Recall, in comparison with the change order mnemonic (forth article) and witness-compatible
questioning (fifth article). Lastly, we provide the reader with a general conclusion section where
we discuss our studies’ contribution for the development of new interview strategies to enhance
witnesses’ recall and evaluate report accuracy; for further understanding the impact of several
psychological variables and memory processes on witnesses’ reports; and for Portuguese
professionals and researchers whom have now available a Portuguese ECI protocol which has
been tested and found to be effective.
References
Bensi, L., Nori, R., Gambetti, E., & Giusberti, F. (2011). The enhanced cognitive interview: A study
on the efficacy of shortened variants and single techniques. European Journal of
Cognitive Psychology, 23, 311–321. doi:10.1080/20445911.2011.497485.
Brunel, M., Py, J., & Launay, C. (2013). Cost and benefit of a new instruction for the cognitive
interview: the open depth instruction. Psychology, Crime & Law, 19, 845–863.
doi:10.1080/1068316X.2012.684058.
Dando, C. J., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2008). The cognitive interview: Inexperienced police
officers’ perceptions of their witness interviewing behaviour. Legal and Criminological
Psychology, 13, 59–70. doi:10.1348/ 135532506X162498.
Fisher, R. P. (2010). Interviewing cooperative witnesses. Legal and Criminological Psychology,
15, 25-38. doi:10.1348/135532509X441891
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative
interviewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (2010). The Cognitive Interview method of conducting police
interviews: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence.
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 321–328.
doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2010.09.004.
25
Fisher, R. P., Geiselman, R. E., & Raymond, D. S. (1987). Critical analysis of police interview
techniques. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 15, 177-185.
Fisher, R. P., Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2011). Interviewing cooperative witnesses. Current Directions
in Psychological Science, 20, 16-19. doi:10.1177/0963721410396826
Gabbert, F. & Hope, L. (2013). Suggestibility and memory conformity. In A. M. Ridley, F. Gabbert,
& D. J. La Rooy (Eds.), Suggestibility in legal contexts: Psychological research and
forensic applications (pp. 63-83). Chichester, UK: Willey-Blackwell.
doi:10.1002/9781118432907.ch4
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., Firstenberg, I., Hutton, L., Sullivan, S. J., Avetissian, I. V., &
Prosk, A. L. (1984). Enhancement of eyewitness memory: An empirical evaluation of the
cognitive interview. Journal of Police and Science Administration, 12, 74-80.
Griffiths, A., & Milne, R. (2010). The application of cognitive interview techniques as part of an
investigation. In C. A. Ireland & J. M. Fisher (Eds.), Consultancy and advising in forensic
practice: Empirical and practical guidelines (pp. 71–90). Chichester, UK: BPS Blackwell.
McLean, M. (1995). Quality investigation? Police interviewing of witnesses. Medicine, Science,
and the Law, 35, 116-122.
Milne, R., & Bull, R. (1999). Investigative Interviewing: Psychology and Practice. Chichester, WS :
Wiley.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The enhanced cognitive interview: Towards a
better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 15, 190-199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P.B., & Bull, R. (2014). A entrevista cognitiva melhorada:
Pressupostos teóricos, investigação e aplicação. Psicologia, 28, 21-30.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v28i2.639
Shepherd, E., & Milne, R. (1999). Full and faithful: ensuring quality practice and integrity of
outcome in witness interviews. In A. Heaton-Armstrong, E. Shepherd, & D. Wolchover
(Eds.), Analysing witness testimony: A guide for legal practitioners and other
professionals (pp. 124-145). London, UK: Blackstone Press Limited.
26
27
Chapter II
Literature Review
28
29
Article 1
A entrevista cognitiva melhorada: Pressupostos teóricos,
investigação e aplicação.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P.B., & Bull, R. (2014). A entrevista cognitiva melhorada: Pressupostos teóricos,
investigação e aplicação. Psicologia, 28, 21-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v28i2.639
30
31
A entrevista cognitiva melhorada: Pressupostos teóricos, investigação e aplicação.
RESUMO
A entrevista de testemunhas é um procedimento fundamental no decurso das investigações
policiais e avaliações forenses. No entanto, o conhecimento, formação e treino destes profissionais
para entrevistar testemunhas é frequentemente insuficiente, levando ao uso de técnicas de
entrevista inadequadas e à obtenção de informação limitada e pouco fidedigna. Neste artigo
abordamos a Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada, atualmente aceite como um dos métodos mais
eficazes para obter bons testemunhos. Descrevemos pormenorizadamente esta entrevista, quais
os pressupostos teóricos que justificam a sua utilização, incidindo ainda sobre a investigação
relevante. Por fim, elaboramos um guia de utilização para esta entrevista baseado nos resultados
da investigação e no modelo utilizado pelas forças policiais de Inglaterra e Gales (i.e. “PEACE”).
Não existindo nenhum outro protocolo publicado em língua portuguesa para a aplicação da
Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada, consideramos a leitura deste artigo um primeiro passo para todos
os profissionais que pretendam utilizar este modelo de entrevista.
Palavras-chave: entrevista cognitiva melhorada; entrevista de testemunhas; investigação policial;
avaliação forense; memória de testemunhas
The Enhanced Cognitive Interview: Theory, research and implementation.
ABSTRACT
Interviewing witnesses is a fundamental procedure during police investigations and forensic
evaluations. However, professionals’ knowledge, training and experience to interview witnesses is
often scant, leading to the use of improper interview techniques and the obtaining of limited and
unreliable information. In this paper we address the Enhanced Cognitive Interview, currently accepted
as one of the most effective methods to obtain good accounts. We fully describe this interview, the
theoretical principles which justify its use, and the relevant research. Lastly, we have developed a
Portuguese guide for using this interview, based on research and on the interviewing approach used
by police forces in England and Wales (i.e. “PEACE”). Since no other protocol for the implementation
of the Enhanced Cognitive Interview has been published in Portuguese, we consider reading this
article a first step for all professionals that wish to use this style of interviewing.
Keywords: Enhanced Cognitive Interview; Witness Interviewing; Police Investigation; Forensic
Evaluation; Witnesses Memory
32
A entrevista de testemunhas determina frequentemente o sucesso de uma investigação
policial ou avaliação forense (Milne & Bull, 1999). No entanto, o relato das testemunhas
raramente corresponde exatamente ao que aconteceu, ou até ao que as testemunhas
memorizaram, pois diversos erros e omissões são cometidos durante o relato. O uso de
técnicas de entrevista inadequadas, frequentemente utilizadas em contexto policial e forense
(e.g., uso excessivo de questões), leva frequentemente à obtenção de fracos testemunhos
(Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2013).
Com o objetivo de criar um protocolo adequado para a entrevista de testemunhas que
permitisse obter o máximo de informação correta possível, Geiselman e col. (1984)
desenvolveram a Entrevista Cognitiva. Esta entrevista é atualmente aceite como um dos
melhores métodos para obter bons testemunhos (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Prescott, Milne, &
Clark, 2011). No entanto, entrevistar adequadamente uma testemunha é um procedimento
extremamente difícil e exigente, particularmente quando são utilizados modelos de entrevista
complexos como este (Griffiths, Milne, & Cherryman, 2011). Para tal, é fundamental que o
entrevistador compreenda como, e quando, utilizar cada um dos procedimentos do protocolo
de entrevista. Conhecer os pressupostos teóricos que fundamentam cada um dos
procedimentos da Entrevista Cognitiva, os diversos protocolos de aplicação da mesma, e os
resultados da investigação existente acerca deste tema, é essencial para este fim. Assim, ao
longo do presente artigo, iremos descrever em pormenor a Entrevista Cognitiva e abordar os
pressupostos teóricos inerentes a cada um dos seus procedimentos. Iremos também mostrar
os resultados de investigações que aplicaram esta entrevista em diferentes contextos ou
manipulando diferentes variáveis. Por fim, iremos analisar e descrever um modelo de aplicação
desta entrevista, providenciando algumas diretrizes para a condução de uma boa entrevista
forense/policial. Pretendemos assim criar um protocolo em língua portuguesa para a aplicação
da Entrevista Cognitiva que permita entrevistar testemunhas de forma adequada.
Entrevista Cognitiva (melhorada)
Vários estudos mostraram que a Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada permite obter mais
informação por parte das testemunhas sem comprometer a exatidão dos seus relatos
(Aschermann, Mantwill, & Köhnken, 1991; Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Milne, Sharman, Powell,
& Mead, 2013). Este modelo de entrevista tem sido utilizado pelas forças policiais de diversos
países (e.g., Inglaterra, Gales, Nova Zelândia). Mostrou também ser eficaz com diferentes
testemunhas – e.g., crianças, adultos ou idosos (Verkampt & Ginet, 2009; Wright & Holliday,
33
2006), diferentes tipos de episódios a recordar - e.g., crimes, acidentes, gravações telefónicas
(Campos & Alonso-Quecuty, 2008) e diferentes intervalos de tempo entre o episódio a recordar
e a entrevista - desde poucos minutos a várias semanas (Larsson, Granhag, & Spjut, 2002),
tanto em laboratório como em estudos realizados com testemunhas de crimes reais,
entrevistadas pelas próprias forças policiais (Paulo et al., 2013).
Originalmente a Entrevista Cognitiva continha quatro mnemónicas: Relatar Tudo,
Restabelecimento do Contexto, Mudança de Ordem e Mudança de Perspetiva.
A mnemónica Relatar Tudo consiste em pedir à testemunha que relate tudo o que
recorda com o maior grau de detalhe possível, mesmo que tal informação possa parecer trivial
ou irrelevante à testemunha (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). Esta mnemónica é fundamental pois
evita que as testemunhas omitam detalhes que consideram irrelevantes para a investigação.
Embora, no dia a dia, os seres humanos estejam habituados a relatar episódios descrevendo
apenas os acontecimentos centrais, até o mais pequeno detalhe pode ser decisivo para uma
investigação policial. Adicionalmente, nem sempre a testemunha sabe avaliar qual a
informação que poderá ser útil para a investigação. Por fim, os diversos traços de memória
relativos a um acontecimento estão frequentemente associados (Tulving, 1991). Assim, a
ativação de uma memória aparentemente irrelevante para a investigação poderá ser pista para
outras memórias extremamente relevantes. Por estas razões, pedir à testemunha que adote
este estilo comunicativo, relatando todos os detalhes de que se recorda, é uma instrução
fundamental.
A mnemónica Restabelecimento do Contexto consiste em pedir à testemunha que recrie
mentalmente o contexto físico do crime, bem como o seu estado fisiológico, cognitivo e
emocional durante o mesmo. Esta mnemónica é crucial pois uma dada memória é mais
facilmente recuperada quando é recriado o contexto em que esta foi codificada, ou seja, o
contexto em que foi “memorizada” (Tulving & Thomson, 1973). A utilização desta mnemónica
é particularmente importante quando são entrevistadas crianças, pois a sua memória está
fortemente associada ao contexto (Milne, 1997). Adicionalmente, embora alguns adultos
utilizem esta mnemónica espontaneamente, as crianças são incapazes de o fazer (Gathercole &
Hitch, 1993).
A mnemónica Mudança de Ordem é executada pedindo à testemunha para relatar o
crime através de uma ordem temporal diferente, habitualmente a ordem inversa. Pretende-se
assim que a testemunha utilize uma estratégia de recuperação diferente, pois diferentes
estratégias de recuperação poderão ativar diferentes memórias (Tulving, 1991). Esta
mnemónica é particularmente útil quando a testemunha mantém um forte esquema mental
34
(padrão organizado de pensamentos e comportamentos) sobre o tipo de evento que procura
relatar (Griffiths & Milne, 2010). Para compreendermos este conceito, imaginemos um
segurança de um bar que todos os dias assiste a disputas entre os clientes. Este poderá ter um
esquema mental marcado acerca do que é uma habitual “luta de bar”: dois homens
confrontam-se verbalmente, posteriormente recorrem à violência física através de murros e
empurrões, sendo por fim expulsos do bar. Por esta razão, se questionado acerca de um
destes episódios em particular, esta testemunha poderá exibir dificuldade em recordá-lo,
evocando inadvertidamente memórias das restantes disputas. Poderá ainda omitir memórias
que não sejam consistentes com o esquema mental que construiu. Por exemplo, poderá não
relatar que um dos envolvidos utilizou técnicas de artes marciais, pois tal ato não é consistente
com o esquema mental referido – uso de empurrões e murros. Uma vez que estes esquemas
mentais são habitualmente construídos e armazenados na nossa memória por ordem
cronológica, recordar o crime numa ordem temporal diferente poderá evitar a interferência dos
mesmos na recordação do acontecimento particular (Dando & Milne, 2009).
Por fim, a mnemónica Mudança de Perspetiva consiste em pedir à testemunha para
recordar o evento a partir de uma perspetiva diferente. Pode ser pedido à testemunha para
adotar uma nova perspetiva externa (e.g., ”Conte-me agora tudo o que viu e que o funcionário
do banco poderá também ter visto.”) ou interna (e.g., “Sei que neste momento está um pouco
nervosa. No entanto, tente adotar uma perspetiva mais relaxada tal como se sentia no dia do
assalto antes de se aperceber que um crime estava prestes a ocorrer.”). Tal como o
procedimento anterior (Mudança de Ordem), esta mnemónica pretende que as testemunhas
utilizem uma estratégia de recuperação diferente, facilitando a evocação de novos detalhes.
Alguns anos mais tarde, Fisher e Geiselman (1992) concluem que a utilização das quatro
mnemónicas anteriormente propostas não conduz necessariamente à obtenção de um bom
relato. Estes autores apercebem-se que os agentes policiais negligenciavam frequentemente
procedimentos fundamentais para garantir o bem-estar psicológico e cooperação das
testemunhas (e.g., estabelecer uma boa relação com a testemunha), diminuindo assim a
qualidade do relato obtido. Por esta razão, adicionam ao protocolo da Entrevista Cognitiva um
conjunto de componentes sociais e comunicativos cruciais para a realização de uma boa
entrevista. Surge assim a Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada.
O primeiro procedimento adicionado baseia-se na construção de um relacionamento
adequado com a testemunha (rapport building). Refere-se ao estabelecimento de uma relação
adequada e positiva com a mesma. Este procedimento começa por ser realizado desde o
primeiro momento em que o entrevistador contacta com a testemunha (e.g., por telefone) até
35
ao último contacto que mantém com esta. Trata-se de um procedimento fundamental pois
contribui para o bem-estar da testemunha durante a entrevista. A investigação acerca deste
tema mostra que uma testemunha calma e segura é geralmente capaz de recordar mais
detalhes do que uma testemunha nervosa ou desconfortável (Paulo et al., 2013).
O segundo procedimento chama-se transferência do controlo da entrevista para a
testemunha. Consiste em comunicar à testemunha que, durante a entrevista, é esta a única
que está na posse da informação acerca do acontecimento e que, por isso, a pode relatar. Esta
instrução é fundamental pois as testemunhas consideram frequentemente que o entrevistador
irá apenas colocar questões acerca dos aspetos que pretende ver abordados, sustentando-se
na informação que possui acerca do crime. No entanto, deve ser clarificado à testemunha que
é ela quem possui a informação valiosa acerca do crime, e não o próprio entrevistador. Neste
sentido, é função da testemunha fazer esforço para relatar o máximo de informação possível e
não apenas responder às questões do entrevistador. Deve igualmente ser comunicado à
testemunha que esta detém completo controlo sobre o seu relato, por exemplo, podendo iniciar
o relato livre pelo momento do crime que considerar mais pertinente. Esta instrução pretende
responsabilizar a testemunha pelo seu próprio relato, maximizando o seu desempenho (Paulo
et al., 2013).
O terceiro procedimento denomina-se questionamento compatível com a testemunha e
consiste em colocar as questões certas no momento adequado. Ou seja, todas as questões
devem ser compatíveis com o relato da testemunha e as estratégias de recuperação por esta
utilizadas. Por exemplo, se a testemunha começa por descrever um assalto a um banco
relatando a forma como o ladrão saiu do banco, o entrevistador não deve colocar questões
sobre o momento em que o ladrão entrou no banco. Ou seja, o entrevistador não pode interferir
negativamente com a estratégia de recuperação da testemunha, por exemplo, interrompendo-a.
A utilização deste procedimento torna impossível estabelecer protocolos de entrevista padrão,
pois cada entrevista terá de ser adaptada ao discurso da testemunha.
O último procedimento, denominado de visualização mental, é semelhante à mnemónica
de Restabelecimento do Contexto. No entanto, em vez de ser pedido à testemunha que recrie
mentalmente o cenário global do crime, é pedido à testemunha para recriar mentalmente
detalhes mais específicos – “feche os olhos e pense na melhor imagem que tem da roupa que
o ladrão vestia”. Esta mnemónica deriva também da premissa de que uma memória é mais
facilmente recuperada quando recriado o contexto em que esta foi codificada (Tulving &
Thomson, 1973).
36
Tal como referido, ao longo dos anos vários investigadores têm estudado este modelo
de entrevista. Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, e Holland (1985) relatam que a Entrevista
Cognitiva é particularmente eficaz quando o evento a ser recordado contém muita informação,
tal como acontece na maioria dos crimes. Milne (1997) conclui que a Entrevista Cognitiva
Melhorada é eficaz quando utilizada com grupos vulneráveis, por exemplo, crianças com
problemas de aprendizagem. Alguns investigadores procuraram também avaliar a eficácia das
diversas técnicas e mnemónicas que compõem esta entrevista. Por exemplo, Vredeveldt e
Penrod (2013) avaliaram a importância de fechar os olhos durante a mnemónica de
Restabelecimento do Contexto, concluindo que este procedimento contribui para a recuperação
de mais informação. Holliday e Albon (2004) sugerem ainda que esta entrevista pode proteger
a memória da testemunha contra a interferência de informação pós-evento enganosa (e.g.,
notícias televisivas acerca do crime). Memon, Zaragoza, Clifford e Kidd (2010) concluem que a
aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada previamente a uma tentativa deliberada do
entrevistador em implantar falsas memórias (Loftus & Palmer, 1974) reduz o número de falsas
memórias evocadas nas entrevistas posteriores.
Nas últimas décadas a Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada tem sido o modelo
predominantemente utilizado para a entrevista de testemunhas (Griffiths & Milne, 2010). No
entanto, a utilidade de alguns dos seus componentes e mnemónicas tem sido questionada
(McMahon & Greenwood, 2005). A mnemónica Mudança de Perspetiva e, num menor grau,
Mudança de Ordem são frequentemente procedimentos morosos e difíceis de aplicar. A título
de exemplo, algumas testemunhas parecem ser incapazes de colocar-se na perspetiva de uma
outra testemunha para relatar o que recordam acerca de determinado crime. Adicionalmente,
estas mnemónicas são por vezes pouco eficazes, ou seja, incapazes de provocar um aumento
considerável no número de informação evocada pela testemunha (Bensi, Nori, Gambetti, &
Fiorella, 2011). Assim, alguns investigadores propõem a utilização de versões reduzidas desde
modelo de entrevista, bem como mnemónicas e procedimentos alternativos com o objetivo de
aumentar a eficácia da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada. McMahon e Greenwood (2005)
sugerem retirar estas duas mnemónicas e/ou substitui-las por duas tentativas adicionais de
recuperação (relatar novamente o episódio). Dando, Wilcock, Behnkle e Milne (2011)
desenvolveram um procedimento alternativo para a aplicação da mnemónica de
Restabelecimento do Contexto, através do uso de um esquema/desenho. Brunel, Py e Launay
(2013) sugerem incluir uma segunda tentativa de recuperação antes da fase de
questionamento. Em suma, ao longo das últimas décadas, vários investigadores têm-se focado
37
neste modelo de entrevista, não só no sentido de explorar e avaliar os seus componentes, mas
também de aumentar a sua eficácia e utilidade.
Com o objetivo de melhorar a compreensão do leitor em relação e este modelo de
entrevista, abordámos os vários componentes da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada, a sua origem,
e as teorias e investigações que sustentam a sua utilização. De seguida procuramos construir
um guia em língua portuguesa para a aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada com base na
análise da investigação laboratorial e de campo nesta área, e considerando as diretrizes
apontadas por estes autores para a aplicação adequada deste modelo de entrevista. Baseámo-
nos ainda no modelo PEACE (Planning and preparation; Engage and explain; Account; Closure;
Evaluation) que se trata do protocolo utilizado em Inglaterra e Gales para entrevistar
testemunhas cooperantes (Griffiths & Milne, 2010). Não obstante, tal como iremos debater no
final do artigo, este modelo poderá necessitar de adaptações específicas ao funcionamento
interno das diversas forças policiais ou de cada instituição que pretende aplicar este modelo de
entrevista (e.g., unidades de avaliação forense).
Aplicação da entrevista cognitiva melhorada
Como já referimos, a Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada é utilizada por inúmeras forças
policiais e outros profissionais, um pouco por todo o Mundo. No entanto, apenas em alguns
países (e.g., Inglaterra, Gales, Nova Zelândia) existem diretrizes claras para a utilização desta
entrevista. De facto, Inglaterra é talvez o melhor exemplo de um país onde esta entrevista foi
adaptada e incluída nos protocolos das forças policiais como método principal para a entrevista
de testemunhas (Griffiths & Milne, 2010). Neste país existem ainda inúmeras investigações que
avaliam a eficácia deste modelo de entrevista em casos reais, bem como as perceções dos
agentes policiais em relação à aplicação deste modelo (Wheatcroft, Wagstaff, & Russell, 2013).
Investigações acerca da avaliação do desempenho dos agentes policiais no que diz respeito à
aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada, ou acerca da eficácia dos extensos programas de
treino a que os agentes policiais são sujeitos, são também abundantes neste país (Griffiths,
Milne, & Cherryman, 2011). Por estas razões, iremo-nos focar no modelo PEACE que, tal como
referido, se trata do protocolo utilizado em Inglaterra e Gales para entrevistar testemunhas
cooperantes (Griffiths & Milne, 2010). Este modelo de entrevista, baseado na Entrevista
Cognitiva Melhorada, foi extensivamente investigado e avaliado por investigadores e agentes
policiais (Milne, Shaw, & Bull, 2007). Ao longo dos próximos parágrafos iremos também
fornecer algumas indicações para a aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada, provenientes
38
da investigação existente acerca deste tema. No Quadro 1.1 podemos observar um esquema
da estrutura de aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada que iremos analisar de seguida.
Fase 1 Estabelecer uma boa relação com a testemunha
a) Cumprimentar
b) Personalizar a entrevista
Fase 2 Explicar os objetivos da entrevista
a) Solicitar concentração da testemunha
b) Contar Tudo
c) Transferir controlo
Fase 3 Relato livre
a) Restabelecimento do Contexto
b) Questões de resposta aberta
c) Pausas
d) Não interromper a testemunha
Fase 4 Questionamento
a) Contar Tudo
b) Questões compatíveis com o discurso da testemunha
c) É normal “não recordar”
d) Visualização mental
e) Questões de resposta aberta
Fase 5 Novas estratégias de recuperação
a) Mudança de Ordem
b) Mudança de Perspetiva
c) Foco em vários sentidos
Fase 6 Questões importantes para a investigação
Fase 7 Resumo
Fase 8 Encerramento
Fase 9 Avaliação
Quadro 1.1. Aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada de acordo com o modelo “PEACE”.
O modelo esquematizado é apenas um modelo ilustrativo no sentido em que algumas
das fases (e.g., fase 6 – Questões importantes para a investigação) e procedimentos descritos
(e.g., foco em vários sentidos) poderão em determinadas ocasiões ser aplicados por ordens
diversas ou mesmo não ser utilizados. Embora no contexto empírico, por questões de controlo
experimental, sejam usualmente aplicados todos os componentes da Entrevista Cognitiva
Melhorada utilizando uma ordem de aplicação padronizada, a capacidade do entrevistador em
flexibilizar estes procedimentos no contexto profissional é imprescindível para o uso adequado
de qualquer entrevista investigativa (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). Da mesma forma, embora
39
algumas mnemónicas da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada devam ser utilizadas em todas as
entrevistas (e.g., Contar Tudo), outros procedimentos poderão ser inadequados para
determinada investigação (e.g., Mudança de Perspetiva ou Mudança de Ordem). Assim, as
diversas fases, procedimentos e mnemónicas devem ser conceptualizadas como uma “caixa de
ferramentas”. Quer isto dizer que cabe ao entrevistador escolher as técnicas que melhor se
adequam a cada investigação, flexibilizando e adequando a entrevista.
Fase 1 - Estabelecer uma boa relação com a testemunha
Estabelecer e manter uma boa relação com a testemunha é um procedimento
fundamental não só no início, mas também ao longo de toda a entrevista. Desde o primeiro
contacto com a testemunha o entrevistador deve considerar este objetivo. Para tal, é
fundamental que este cumprimente a testemunha e clarifique quem é e qual a instituição que
representa, evitando manter uma postura autoritária e mostrando-se disponível para prestar o
apoio necessário à testemunha. Este deve optar por não utilizar termos referentes à sua
posição hierárquica na instituição (e.g., Superintendente). O entrevistador deve ainda clarificar
qual o papel da testemunha na investigação, bem como a razão pela qual esta foi chamada
para a entrevista. Deve ainda personalizar a entrevista, incluindo diversas vezes o nome da
testemunha no seu discurso, e atendendo às necessidades e características particulares da
mesma (Paulo et al., 2013). A título de exemplo, entrevistar uma testemunha com dificuldades
comunicativas exige a adoção de um estilo comunicativo específico.
Nesta fase inicial da entrevista, o entrevistador deve abordar tópicos neutros com a
testemunha. Através desta conversação inicial o entrevistador procura não só que a
testemunha se sinta confortável com a sua presença e o com o contexto da entrevista, mas
também que a testemunha se habitue ao estilo de conversação utilizado. Para tal, assim como
ao longo da entrevista, o entrevistador deve colocar maioritariamente questões de resposta
aberta (e.g., “Como foi o seu dia?”). Deve igualmente procurar obter respostas detalhadas por
parte do entrevistado, por exemplo, introduzindo silêncios para que este sinta necessidade de
elaborar respostas mais longas.
Fase 2 - Explicar os objetivos da entrevista
Nesta fase o entrevistador deve comunicar de forma clara e precisa o que irá
acontecer ao longo de toda a entrevista. Transferir o controlo da entrevista para a testemunha
é também um objetivo fundamental para esta fase da entrevista. Para tal, o entrevistador
poderá basear-se na seguinte descrição:
40
Embora neste momento esteja a ser eu quem mais intervém nesta entrevista, vou parar
de o fazer dentro de momentos pois foi você quem viu o crime e tem toda a informação
importante. Não irei interrompê-la(o) e peço-lhe que me conte tudo o que se lembra
acerca do crime, pela ordem que desejar. Pode fazer pausas sempre que quiser e
podemos até parar alguns minutos pois esta é uma tarefa que exige um grande esforço
da sua parte.
É também neste momento que o entrevistador aplica a mnemónica Relatar Tudo,
focando alguns pontos essenciais:
Gostava que me contasse tudo o que se lembra acerca do crime, com o máximo de
detalhe possível. Por favor conte-me tudo o que se lembra, mesmo os detalhes que lhe
possam parecer irrelevantes ou que apenas os recorde parcialmente. Algumas pessoas
omitem detalhes pois pensam que não são importantes. No entanto, eu estou interessado
em tudo o que lhe vier à cabeça. Até o mais pequeno detalhe pode ser muito importante.
Por fim, para a implementação desta mnemónica, o entrevistador poderá ainda utilizar
um exemplo para demonstrar o nível de detalhe que pretende obter. Por exemplo, poderá
descrever exaustivamente uma garrafa de água para que a testemunha perceba que este está
interessado em todo o tipo de detalhes, e não apenas numa descrição genérica da garrafa, e
posteriormente do crime.
Fase 3 - Relato livre
O objetivo do entrevistador para esta fase é o de obter o melhor relato livre possível. É
através do relato livre que a testemunha vai providenciar grande parte da informação acerca do
crime pois, tal como iremos abordar de seguida, é esta a fase em que o entrevistador menos
intervém no relato da testemunha. Assim, a informação obtida está menos sujeita a distorções
ou erros pois as questões que irão ser colocadas pelo entrevistador em fases posteriores
podem influenciar a memória do entrevistado. Como iremos também abordar mais à frente,
basta o entrevistador cometer um pequeno erro durante a fase de questionamento (e.g.,
colocar uma questão sugestiva - “O assaltante tinha luvas, não tinha?”) para colocar em risco a
exatidão do discurso da testemunha.
41
Para obter o melhor relato possível, o entrevistador deve utilizar a mnemónica
Restabelecimento do Contexto:
Peço-lhe agora que feche os olhos e os mantenha fechados durante todo o exercício, pois
fechar os olhos ajuda a que obtenha uma imagem mais clara da cena do crime na sua
mente. Pense no dia em que observou o crime…; Pense no que estava a fazer nesse
dia…; Como se estava a sentir quando se dirigia para o local do crime…; Agora imagine o
cenário do crime e tente obter uma imagem clara…, muito clara…, desse cenário na sua
mente…. Pense agora em todos os objetos que estavam nesse cenário…; pense nos sons
e vozes que se lembra ouvir…; pense nas pessoas que estavam presentes na cena do
crime…; E agora foque-se no que aconteceu. Quando estiver pronto/a e tiver uma
imagem clara do cenário do crime na sua mente, mantendo os olhos fechados e usando
todo o tempo que precisar, diga-me tudo o que se lembra pela ordem que quiser e
estabelecendo as pausas que desejar.
Esta instrução deve ser comunicada de forma pausada, dando tempo à testemunha
para recriar o contexto do crime na sua mente. Deve também ser mantido um tom de voz com
volume reduzido pois um volume elevado pode interferir com a tentativa da testemunha em
recriar o contexto do crime. Tal como referido, durante o relato livre o entrevistador deve
interromper o menos possível a testemunha de forma a não interferir com o seu relato, bem
como com as estratégias de recuperação utilizadas pela testemunha. Caso seja necessário,
algumas questões de resposta aberta podem ser utilizadas para direcionar o discurso da
testemunha. Não obstante, o entrevistador deve ter particular cuidado com o tipo de questões
que coloca. Por exemplo, caso o entrevistador introduza nova informação nas suas perguntas
(e.g., referir a arma do crime antes da testemunha narrar a sua existência), a memória da
testemunha poderá sofrer distorções. Sempre que necessário devem ser estabelecidas pausas.
Caso a testemunha não se sinta confortável para fechar os olhos, deve ser instruída para olhar
para um local fixo da sala (e.g., um ponto fixo de uma parede) evitando assim distrações que
dificultem o restabelecimento do contexto.
Fase 4 - Questionamento
Após obter um relato livre extenso e completo, o entrevistador poderá colocar algumas
questões baseadas no discurso da testemunha. Nesta fase, o entrevistador deve recordar à
testemunha para relatar tudo o que se lembra, mesmo os detalhes que pareçam ser
42
irrelevantes. Deve ainda comunicar à mesma que esta deverá responder que não se recorda
sempre que seja esse o caso pois esta é uma resposta tão valiosa como outra qualquer. Esta
instrução é particularmente importante com crianças pois estas tendem a dar respostas sobre
as quais não estão certas com o intuito de não dececionar o entrevistador. Como já referido, as
questões colocadas devem ser sempre compatíveis com o discurso da testemunha. Por
exemplo, se a testemunha está a descrever o assaltante, o entrevistador deve colocar todas as
questões que tem acerca deste aspeto antes de a questionar sobre o tópico seguinte. Na fase
de questionamento, o entrevistador poderá também utilizar a técnica de Visualização Mental:
Disse-me que quando o assaltante entrou no banco olhou fixamente para ele pois este
parecia um pouco agitado. Peço-lhe agora que feche os olhos e recrie a imagem que tem
do assaltante quando este entrou no banco. Foque-se em todos os pormenores que se
lembra acerca do mesmo: o seu vestuário…; a sua expressão facial …; o seu cabelo …;
os seus olhos …; [etc.]. Quando tiver uma boa imagem mental do assaltante, conte-me
tudo o que se lembra acerca dele.
Por fim, o entrevistador deve utilizar maioritariamente questões de resposta aberta ao
longo de toda a entrevista (“O que fez o assaltante quando saiu do banco?”). Como referimos
anteriormente, questões de resposta fechada (“O assaltante tinha luvas?”), escolha múltipla (“O
assaltante tinha uma máscara ou um chapéu?”) ou sugestivas (“O assaltante tinha luvas, não
tinha?”) conduzem a respostas pouco informativas e aumentam o número de erros cometidos
pela testemunha, pelo que devem ser evitadas.
Fase 5 - Novas estratégias de recuperação
Como referido, o protocolo de aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada deve ser
flexível e adequado às características da testemunha, do episódio em causa e do tipo de
informação que o entrevistador pretende obter. Nesta fase, a capacidade do entrevistador em
adaptar a entrevista é particularmente importante, pois as técnicas que iremos abordar poderão
ser aplicadas de diferentes formas ou até não ser aplicadas de todo. Caso seja claro para o
entrevistador que a testemunha já relatou exaustivamente tudo o que recorda acerca do crime,
utilizar novas estratégias de recuperação poderá ser ineficaz. No entanto, caso o entrevistador
considere que a testemunha poderá ainda ser capaz de relatar mais informação, através do uso
de novas estratégias de recuperação, algumas estratégias poderão ser utilizadas.
43
Uma destas estratégias é a utilização da mnemónica Mudança de Ordem. Ao aplicar
esta mnemónica o entrevistador poderá instruir a testemunha da seguinte forma:
Agora gostaria que fizéssemos outra tarefa que, por vezes, ajuda as pessoas a
lembrarem-se de ainda mais informação. Gostava que me contasse novamente tudo o
que se lembra acerca do crime, mas, desta vez, pela ordem inversa. Ou seja, comece por
relatar o último acontecimento que se lembra e depois passe para o que aconteceu
imediatamente antes disso e por aí fora. Sei que parece difícil mas irei ajudá-la(o). Qual
foi o último acontecimento de que se lembra?
Caso o entrevistador opte por utilizar esta mnemónica, deve auxiliar a testemunha ao
longo de todo o processo. Após a testemunha descrever tudo o que se lembra acerca de
determinado momento do crime, o entrevistador deverá pedir à mesma que descreva o episódio
que ocorreu imediatamente antes.
A mnemónica de Mudança de Perspetiva pode também ser útil em algumas situações.
Por exemplo, caso a testemunha tenha mostrado dificuldade em descrever as ações do
assaltante, poderá agora ser-lhe pedido que relate novamente o crime tal como se o assaltante
fosse a personagem principal de uma peça de teatro:
Queria agora pedir-lhe que relate o episódio a partir de uma perspetiva diferente pois este
procedimento pode ajudar as pessoas a relatar mais informação que previamente não
tenham recordado. Imagine que o assaltante, durante toda a cena do crime, se encontra
sob um holofote tal como uma personagem principal numa peça de teatro. Pedia-lhe que
relatasse novamente tudo o que se lembra, tentando sempre focar-se no assaltante como
se este fosse a personagem principal deste episódio.
O entrevistador pode ainda pedir à testemunha que relate novamente tudo o que se
lembra acerca do crime focando-se num sentido percetivo diferente. Tal procedimento pode
também ser incluído numa das duas mnemónicas anteriormente descritas, por exemplo,
pedindo à testemunha que relate o episódio pela ordem inversa, focando-se apenas no que se
lembra de ouvir. Maioritariamente, as testemunhas focam-se na informação visual que têm do
crime. Assim, pedir à testemunha que se foque num outro sentido percetivo poderá auxiliá-la a
relatar nova informação. Adicionalmente, vítimas de alguns crimes (e.g., crimes sexuais)
descrevem frequentemente ter fechado os olhos durante o momento do crime. Por esta razão,
44
pedir a estas testemunhas que relatem o que ouviram/cheiraram/sentiram poderá ser
extremamente vantajoso.
Fase 6 - Questões importantes para a investigação
Até esta fase da entrevista a testemunha não deve ser questionada acerca de aspetos
que não mencionou, por exemplo, questionada acerca da arma do crime sem esta ter narrado
a sua existência. Estas questões podem apresentar um caráter sugestivo, ou seja, poderão
levar a testemunha a afirmar algo que não se recorda mas assume através do discurso do
entrevistador. No entanto, em algumas investigações, poderá ser imprescindível colocar
questões acerca de tópicos que a testemunha não mencionou durante a entrevista. Uma vez
que nesta fase da entrevista todas as outras técnicas de questionamento foram já utilizadas e
grande parte do relato da testemunha foi já obtido, o entrevistador poderá introduzir este tipo
de questões caso sejam imprescindíveis para a sua investigação. No entanto, o entrevistador
deve estar ciente que a informação obtida através deste tipo de questões tem uma maior
probabilidade de conter distorções ou erros (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). Mais uma vez,
questões sugestivas, de resposta fechada ou escolha múltipla devem ser evitadas.
Fase 7 – Resumo
Chegado este momento, o entrevistador poderá sintetizar alguns pontos centrais do
relato da testemunha, dando-lhe a oportunidade de acrescentar nova informação e/ou corrigi-
la. Esta fase é opcional pois caso existam gravações vídeo da entrevista o entrevistador terá a
oportunidade de rever a gravação e esclarecer alguma dúvida que tenha em relação ao
discurso da testemunha através dessa mesma gravação.
Fase 8 – Encerramento
Na fase de encerramento o entrevistador deverá novamente abordar tópicos neutros
com a testemunha tal como no início da entrevista. Ao longo da entrevista, a testemunha
poderá ter abordado tópicos sensíveis e perturbadores. Assim, o entrevistador deve certificar-se
de que a testemunha sai do local da entrevista sentindo-se calma e segura. É igualmente
importante agradecer à testemunha pelo seu trabalho árduo ao longo de toda a entrevista.
Desta forma, o entrevistador promove a colaboração da testemunha em futuras ocasiões caso
seja necessário. Para tal, este deve ainda fornecer um contacto à testemunha e informá-la de
que poderá comunicar caso tenha alguma dúvida ou se recorde de algum outro detalhe.
45
Fase 9 - Avaliação
Após o término da entrevista é importante avaliar o valor da informação obtida e o
impacto que esta informação tem na investigação policial/ avaliação forense. É igualmente
importante que o próprio entrevistador, ou o seu supervisor, avaliem o seu desempenho. O
treino e avaliação são imprescindíveis para que qualquer entrevistador possa melhorar o seu
desempenho em entrevistas posteriores (Griffiths & Milne, 2010).
Conclusão
A Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada é uma das técnicas mais eficazes para obter bons
testemunhos, tendo sido alvo de imensas investigações e modificações ao longo das últimas
décadas (Paulo et al., 2013). No entanto, é necessário conhecer a sua origem, os seus
pressupostos teóricos, os protocolos de aplicação existentes e a investigação acerca deste tema
para utilizar eficazmente este modelo de entrevista. Com este artigo procurámos construir o
primeiro protocolo em língua portuguesa para a aplicação da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada.
No protocolo apresentado, dividimos a estrutura da entrevista em nove fases explicando em
que consistem, quais as técnicas a utilizar em cada uma destas fases, bem como a forma
adequada de aplicar tais técnicas. Consideramos que a leitura deste artigo será um primeiro
passo essencial para todos os profissionais que pretendam utilizar este modelo de entrevista.
Embora as mnemónicas e técnicas da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada possam já ser
utilizadas por algumas forças policiais e unidades de avaliação forense portuguesas, o estatuto
de reserva de divulgação de tais protocolos por esses profissionais impossibilitam o acesso e
avaliação dos mesmos. A utilização adequada da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada obriga ainda a
que as instituições disponham não só de programas de treino, mas também avaliação do
desempenho dos entrevistadores (Poyser & Milne, 2011). Por várias razões (e.g., formação
insuficiente das próprias equipas de treino; falta de financiamento; reduzida cooperação por
parte dos entrevistadores; etc.), não é esta a realidade portuguesa. Embora a Entrevista
Cognitiva Melhorada seja o modelo de entrevista para testemunhas mais utilizado, e
investigado, um pouco por todo o Mundo, em Portugal são muito escassas as publicações,
programas de treino e investigações acerca deste tema. De facto, para além da investigação
que está a ser desenvolvida por Paulo, Albuquerque & Bull (2015), não parece existir qualquer
outro tipo de investigação em Portugal acerca da utilização da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada.
Por fim destacamos que, embora o protocolo descrito ao longo deste artigo considere
adaptações específicas ao funcionamento e protocolos das forças policiais em geral (e.g.,
46
condução da fase de resumo quando as instalações não permitem a gravação vídeo do
depoimento), futuras colaborações com as diversas forças policiais portuguesas são
imprescindíveis de forma a criar protocolos mais exclusivos da Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada,
maximizando a sua utilidade face à realidade policial portuguesa. A falta de articulação entre as
várias instituições (e.g., forças policiais e equipas de investigação) dificulta que este tipo de
investigação seja realizado.
Financiamento
Este trabalho foi financiado pela “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” de Portugal
(Referência: SFRH/ BD / 84817/2012)
Referências
Aschermann, E., Mantwill, M., & Köhnken, G. (1991). An independent replication of the
effectiveness of the cognitive interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5, 489-495.
doi:10.1002/acp.2350050604
Brunel, M., Py, J., & Launay, C. (2013). Cost and benefit of a new instruction for the cognitive
interview: The open depth instruction. Psychology, Crime & Law, 19, 845-863.
doi:10.1080/1068316X.2012.684058
Campos, L., & Alonso-Quecuty, M. (2008). Language crimes and the cognitive interview: Testing
its efficacy in retrieving a conversational event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22, 1211–
1227. doi:10.1002/acp.1430
Dando, C., & Milne, R. (2009). The cognitive interview. In R. Kocsis (Ed.), Applied criminal
psychology: A guide to forensic behavioural sciences (pp. 147–169). Sydney, NSW:
Charles C. Thomas.
Dando, C., Wilcock, R., Behnkle, C., & Milne, R. (2011). Modifying the cognitive
interview: Countenancing forensic application by enhancing practicability. Psychology,
Crime & Law, 17, 491–511. doi:10.1080/10683160903334212
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative
interviewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Gathercole, S. E., & Hitch, G. J. (1993). Developmental changes in short-term memory: A revised
working memory perspective. In A. Collins, S. E. Gathercole, M. A. Conway, & P. E. Morris
(Eds.), Theories of memory (pp. 189-209). Hove, UK: Erlbaum.
47
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., Firstenberg, I., Hutton, L., Sullivan, S. J., Avetissian, I. V., &
Prosk, A. L. (1984). Enhancement of eyewitness memory: An empirical evaluation of the
cognitive interview. Journal of Police and Science Administration, 12, 74-80.
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., MacKinnon, D. P., & Holland, H. L. (1985). Eyewitness memory
enhancement in the police interview: Cognitive retrieval mnemonics versus hypnosis.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 401–412.
Griffiths, A., & Milne, R. (2010). The application of cognitive interview techniques as part of an
investigation. In C. A. Ireland & J. M. Fisher (Eds.), Consultancy and advising in forensic
practice: Empirical and practical guidelines (pp. 71–90). Chichester, UK: BPS Blackwell.
Griffiths, A., Milne, R., & Cherryman, J. (2011) A question of control? The formulation of suspect
and witness interview question strategies by advanced interviewers. International Journal
of Police Science & Management, 13, 255-267.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2011.13.3.219
Holliday, R., & Albon, A. (2004). Minimising misinformation effects in young children
with cognitive interview mnemonics. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 263–281.
doi:10.1002/acp.973
Davis, M., McMahon, M., & Greenwood, K. (2005). The efficacy of mnemonic components of the
cognitive interview: towards a shortened variant for time-critical investigations.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 75–93.
Milne, R. J. (1997). Analysis and application of the cognitive interview. (Unpublished doctoral
dissertation). University of Portsmouth.
Milne, R., & Bull, R. (1999). Investigative Interviewing: Psychology and Practice. Chichester, WS :
Wiley.
Milne, R., Sharman, S. J., Powell, M. B., & Mead, S. (2013). Assessing the effectiveness of the
cognitive interview for children with severe intellectual disabilities. International Journal of
Disability, Development and Education, 60, 18-29.
doi:10.1080/1034912X.2013.757137
Milne, R., Shaw, G., & Bull, R. (2007). Investigative interviewing: The role of psychology. In D.
Carson, R. Milne, F. Pakes, & K. Shalev, (Eds.), Applying psychology to criminal justice
(pp. 65-80). Chichester, UK: BPS Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470713068.ch4
Larsson, A. S., Granhag, P. A., & Spjut, E. (2002). Children’s recall and the cognitive interview:
do the positive effects hold over time? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 203-214.
doi:10.1002/acp.863
48
Loftus, E. F. & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the
interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior, 13, 585-590. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3
Memon, A., Zaragoza, M., Clifford, B. R., & Kidd, L. (2010). Inoculation or antidote? The effects of
cognitive interview timing on false memory for forcibly fabricated events. Law and Human
Behavior, 34, 105- 117.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The enhanced cognitive interview: Towards a
better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 15, 190-199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., Saraiva, M., & Bull, R. (2015). The enhanced cognitive
interview: Testing appropriateness perception, memory capacity and error estimate
relation with report quality. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29, 536–543.
doi:10.1002/acp.3132
Poyser, S., & Milne, R. (2011). Miscarriages of justice: A call for continued research focusing on
reforming the investigative process. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 2, 61-71.
doi:10.1108/14636641111134305
Prescott, K., Milne, R., Clark, J. (2011). How effective is the enhanced cognitive interview when
aiding recall retrieval of older adults including memory for conversation. Journal of
Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8, 257-270. doi:10.1002/jip.142
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic
memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352-373.
Tulving, E. (1991). Concepts of human memory. In L. R Squire, N. M. Weinberger, G. Lynch, and
J. L. McGaugh, (Eds.), Memory: Organization and locus of change (pp. 3-32). New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Verkampt, F., & Ginet, M. (2009). Variations of the cognitive interview: which one is the most
effective in enhancing children’s testimonies? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1279–
1296. doi:10.1002/acp.1631
Vredeveldt, A., & Penrod, S. D. (2013). Eye-closure improves memory for a witnessed event
under naturalistic conditions. Psychology, Crime & Law, 19, 893-905.
doi:10.1080/1068316X.2012.700313
Wheatcroft, J. M., Wagstaff, G. F., & Russell, K. (2013). Specialist police interviewer perceptions
of the enhanced cognitive interview: Usefulness, confidence and witness reliability. Police
Practice and Research, 13, 1-14. doi:10.1080/15614263.2013.819616
49
Wright, A., & Holliday, R. (2006). Enhancing the recall of young, young–old and old–old adults
with cognitive interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 19–
43.doi:10.1002/acp.1260
50
51
Chapter III
Empirical Studies
52
53
Article 2
The enhanced cognitive interview: Testing appropriateness
perception, memory capacity and error estimate relation with
report quality
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., Saraiva, M., & Bull, R. (2015). The enhanced cognitive interview: Testing
appropriateness perception, memory capacity and error estimate relation with report quality. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 29, 536-543. doi:10.1002/acp.3132
54
55
The enhanced cognitive interview: Testing appropriateness
perception, memory capacity and error estimate relation with report
quality
ABSTRACT
The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI) has been widely studied. However, research has overlooked
witnesses’ attitudes toward the interview and how error estimate and memory capacity relate to
report quality. Participants watched a mock robbery video and were interviewed 48 hours later with
either a Portuguese version of the ECI or a Structured Interview (SI). Participants interviewed with the
ECI provided more information without compromising accuracy, particularly in free recall. Report
accuracy was stable across interview phases and information categories. A higher perception of
interview appropriateness (how witnesses evaluate the appropriateness of the interview procedure
used) was linked with more detailed reports and more interest in being an interviewee. Participants
over-estimated their error rate, and their memory capacity was not related to witnesses’ recall. It is
essential to take into account their perception of interview appropriateness and use alternative
methods to evaluate report quality. Major implications for real-life investigations are discussed.
Keywords: enhanced cognitive interview; appropriateness perception; memory tests; error estimate;
report quality
Interviewing witnesses is a key procedure that frequently determines the success of a
police investigation (Prescott, Milne, & Clark, 2011). However, what witnesses report rarely fully
corresponds with what they remember (Bower, 1967). The difference between what happened
and what is remembered can be even greater when inadequate interviewing techniques, such as
leading questions, are used. These techniques produce a reduced amount of accurate
information as well as incorrect information. To address this issue, Geiselman et al. (1984)
developed the Cognitive Interview.
The Cognitive Interview originally included four cognitive mnemonics: report everything,
mental reinstatement of context, change order and change perspective. The report everything
mnemonic consists of instructing witnesses to report everything they can remember whether it
seems trivial or not (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). This procedure is very important because
otherwise the witness might withhold valuable information she considers to be irrelevant.
Moreover, our memories for any given event may overlap and ‘irrelevant’ recall might activate
‘relevant’ recall (Tulving, 1991). The mental reinstatement of context consists of asking witnesses
56
to mentally recreate the to-be-recalled event and their physiological, cognitive and emotional
states at the time of the crime. This mnemonic was derived from the premise that memory
retrieval is more effective when context of the original event is recreated during recall (Tulving &
Thomson, 1973). Lastly, because memory may be accessed by using several different memory
cues and paths (Tulving, 1991), the change order (asking the witness to recall the event in a
different chronological order) and change perspective mnemonics (to recall the event from a
different perspective) can be used to try to obtain new information.
This interview was further developed some years later by Fisher and Geiselman (1992)
as the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI). Social and communicative components crucial for
conducting good investigative interviews, such as rapport building, were added to the original
procedure. For more information about these components, see Paulo, Albuquerque, and Bull
(2013). Several studies have repeatedly demonstrated this interview technique is able to increase
the amount of correct information recalled by witnesses, while maintaining report accuracy, that
is, the number of correct units of information proportionate to all recalled units of information
(Aschermann, Mantwill, & Köhnken, 1991; Rivard, Fisher, Robertson, & Mueller, 2014).
Therefore, the ECI has been widely acknowledged as one of the most successful procedures for
enhancing witness recollection (Paulo et al., 2013). The ECI has been found to be effective in
different countries — for example, USA, UK, Australia and Brazil (Stein & Memon, 2006); with
different types of witness — for example, children, adults and elderly (Verkampt & Ginet, 2009;
Wright & Holliday, 2006); with different intervals between the crime and interview — minutes to
weeks (Larsson, Granhag, & Spjut, 2002); with different event types — for example, crime, traffic
accident and phone call (Campos & Alonso-Quecuty, 2008) both in laboratory (Colomb & Ginet,
2012) and field studies (Colomb, Ginet, Wright, Demarchi, & Sadler, 2013) and is now being
widely used by police forces in a variety of locations (e.g., UK and Australia).
Most authors (Aschermann et al., 1991; Rivard et al., 2014) have focused on how to
increase the amount of produced information without decreasing report accuracy. However,
Fisher and Geiselman (2010) recently suggested using the ECI is more than using cognitive
techniques to enhance recall, recognizing the need for future research on witnesses’ attitudes
toward the interview process and the interviewer. Other authors recently acknowledged
witnesses’ perceptions toward the interview process might determine how rapport and working
alliance, which are two similar constructs, are established and maintained throughout the
interview (Vanderhallen & Vervaeke, 2014; Vanderhallen, Vervaeke, & Holmberg, 2011).
Establishing and maintaining rapport is also crucial during investigative interviews and was
associated with better recall (Read, Powell, Kebbell, & Milne, 2009; Walsh & Bull, 2012).
57
Ballardin, Stein, and Milne (2013) postulated witnesses consider variables such as interviewers’
capacity to actively listen or welcome the witness at the interview setting and provide a
comfortable environment to be very important for the witness during the course of an interview.
Such findings are consistent with literature from other fields of Psychology. For instance,
Ackerman and Hilsenroth (2003) reviewed a set of studies which suggested therapist’s personal
attributes, such as being flexible, honest, respectful, trustworthy, confident, warm and interested,
are important for establishing a positive therapeutic alliance, this is, a positive relation between
therapist and client. Accordingly, several studies suggested a positive therapeutic alliance is one
of the most important factors for a positive outcome of the therapy (Martin, Garske, & Davis,
2000). However, in the forensic field researchers have not yet addressed how witnesses’
perceptions toward the interviewer and the interview process can directly influence witnesses’
report (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). Therefore, in this study, we focused on how witnesses’
perception of interview appropriateness might influence the amount of produced information, as
well as interest in being an interviewee. We measured interview appropriateness perception by
asking participants to evaluate, in a post-interview questionnaire, how appropriate they
considered the interview procedure to which they had previously been submitted, ECI or
Structured Interview (SI), to be. This research topic is important because even the most theory-
driven procedure could be harmful for the success of the investigation if perceived as
inappropriate by the witness.
In a very recent study, Paulo, Albuquerque, and Bull (2015) emphasized although
increasing ECI recall is important for police investigations, increasing and/or evaluating the
accuracy of different aspects of each witness report, for instance through metacognitive
techniques, is a topic ECI literature has largely disregarded. These authors found witnesses are
able to spontaneously and validly differentiate, in an interview setting, between information they
are sure about (‘certainties’) and information they are unsure about (‘uncertainties’). That is,
participants successfully used spontaneous expressions of uncertainty (e.g., I think, Maybe, I
believe, etc.) to identify less accurate information. Furthermore, they did this spontaneously while
recalling the event (i.e., they were not instructed to do so), successfully performing real-time
memory monitoring. Paulo et al. (2015) found correct recall proportion for recalled ‘uncertainties’
(number of correct ‘uncertainties’ over all produced ‘uncertainties’— correct, incorrect and
confabulated) is significantly lower (.65) than accuracy proportion for ‘certainties’ only (number of
correct ‘certainties’ over all produced ‘certainties’), which has an impressive value of .90. The
authors conclude differentiating ‘uncertainties’ from ‘certainties’ is a straightforward and time-
saving process to increase and evaluate ECI report accuracy. Such results are consistent with
58
metacognitive/metamemory literature, which generally finds metacognitive techniques can be
used to improve witnesses’ accuracy (Higham, Luna, & Bloomfield, 2010; Roberts & Higham,
2002). Several studies (Allwood, Ask, & Granhag, 2005; Brewer, Weber, Wootton, & Lindsay,
2012; Lindsay et al., 2013; Luna & Martín-Luengo, 2012) show in different situations (e.g.,
selections from lineups, cued recall or free recall), when using adequate measures (e.g.,
calibration approach), a positive relation between confidence and accuracy can be found. Higher
accuracy for a given response can be expected when witnesses provide a higher confidence
judgment. Other authors (Evans & Fisher, 2010; Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996) suggest witnesses can
improve their accuracy by using metacognitive control techniques, such as exercising ‘report
option’ or adjusting ‘report precision’. Nonetheless, only two studies have focused on how this
procedure can be used to increase ECI report accuracy (Allwood et al., 2005; Roberts & Higham,
2002). These last authors interviewed witnesses with an ECI and asked them to provide
confidence judgments in a Likert scale for a small portion of their statements. Using this
procedure, participants were also able to distinguish between more and less reliable information.
However, to use such procedure a considerable amount of interviewer’s time is required, for
instance, for applying these scales and selecting information that will be evaluated by the
interviewee. Therefore, it would be difficult to use such procedure in a holistic manner at a real
police interview.
Since witnesses seem to be capable of estimating their accuracy using either
spontaneous expressions of uncertainty or post-interview numerical scales, we tested if they are
also able to estimate the proportion of errors they committed for each interview phase (e.g., free
recall or questioning phase) and for the whole interview. Similar research on frequency
judgments (participants’ estimates of how many units of information are correct for a given part
of their statement) usually found when confidence judgments result in overconfidence
(subjective confidence ratings are higher than ‘real’ accuracy), frequency judgments are
reasonably accurate because these are distinct procedures (Liberman, 2004). Therefore, when
confidence judgments are accurate, frequency judgments usually result in underconfidence. This
has been found in several studies (Gigerenzer, Hoffrage, & Kleinbölting, 1991; Sniezek &
Buckley, 1991). Sniezek and Buckley (1991) proposed a dual-process account stating
confidence judgments and frequency judgments have very different natures. Confidence
judgments are based on item-specific considerations, such as evaluation of information about
item content, whereas frequency judgments are influenced by other variables such as one’s
perception about him/ herself (e.g., perception of expertise). To our knowledge, no previous
study has evaluated witnesses’ ability to perform accurate frequency judgments on an interview,
59
or ECI, condition. If witnesses are able to make such assessment, this can have important
consequences in court (e.g., if a witness is extremely confident she committed very few errors
on her report, should a judge/juror evaluate such report as highly reliable?). Furthermore,
providing a frequency judgment, or an error frequency judgment, for a given part of the
statement is less time demanding than providing confidence judgments for all information units
recalled in that portion of the statement.
Lastly, several studies support witnesses need to access different types of memory when
recalling a crime, (Bower, 1967). For instance, when using ECI mnemonics such as Change
Order or Change Perspective, witnesses need to manipulate memory information while recalling,
processes which are supported by working memory components (Baddeley, 2002; Vrij et al.,
2008). Therefore, one could expect witnesses with a higher general working memory capacity
might give a better report because of their ability to successfully use these mnemonics. However,
to our knowledge, such research has never been conducted. Furthermore, when describing, for
instance, the face of the criminal, witnesses need to access their memory for faces. Morgan et al.
(2007) found witnesses who achieved higher scores at the Faces Recognition Test (Wechsler,
1997) were also more accurate on an eyewitness task: selecting a target person they had
previously met under stressful conditions at a sequential photo presentation. These authors
believe trait ability to remember human faces, measured with the Faces Recognition Test, is
related to witnesses’ ability to recall faces under stressful conditions. However, to our knowledge,
no study has evaluated if trait ability to remember faces could be related to witnesses’ ability to
describe faces during the course of an investigative interview (e.g., ECI), nor if trait ability to
remember other types of stimuli (e.g., locations), measured through memory capacity tests, could
be related to subsequent performance on an investigative interview (e.g., when describing the
perpetrator’s location at the crime scene). Therefore, we believe the relation between witnesses’
performance on different memory tests (accessing different types of memory) and witnesses’
ability to provide a good report has not yet been fully addressed. We innovatively evaluated if
witnesses’ performance on several memory tests was related to their performance when recalling
a video recording of a (mock) bank robbery in an interview setting. This topic can also have major
impact on the applied field, for instance, when assessing the value of the statement in court.
Overall, the present study aimed to explore three main questions: (1) Do witnesses
with a higher perception of interview appropriateness, accessed on a post- interview
questionnaire, have better recall and/or report more motivation to be an interviewee? (2) Are
witnesses capable of performing accurate frequency judgments for their error rate? (3) Is witness
performance on memory tests related to the amount/accuracy of recalled information in an
60
interview? We interviewed two groups of participants regarding their ability to recall a mock bank
robbery 48 hours after they viewed it: one group was interviewed with the ECI, and the other
group was interviewed with an SI.
Method
Participants
A total of 44 psychology students (age: M = 21, SD = 3), 36 female and 8 male from the
University of Minho (Portugal) participated in this study for course credits.
Design
A between subjects experimental design was used with interview condition as the
independent variable with two levels: (1) ECI, and (2) Structured Interview. The amount of
reported information and accuracy were measured in units of information and proportion,
respectively.
Materials
The participants watched a video recording of a non-violent (mock) bank robbery on a
Fujitsu L7ZA LCD computer screen. The video recording, which was edited from the second
episode of the 2004 Portuguese television drama ‘Inspector Max’ (Riccó, & Riccó, 2004), was
three minutes and 11 seconds long. Three memory tests were used to evaluate the following:
(1) Working Memory — Working Memory Span Test (Conway et al., 2005); (2) Face Recognition
— Faces (Wechsler, 1997); and (3) Spatial Span — Spatial Span (Wechsler, 1997). A post-
interview questionnaire was constructed, consisting of two direct questions: (1) In your opinion,
how appropriate would this interview be for a real police setting? And (2) how interesting was it for
you to be interviewed during this study? These questions were answered in a seven-point Likert
scale: 1 — highly inappropriate and 7 — highly appropriate; and 1 — totally uninteresting and 7
— totally interesting, respectively for questions 1 and 2. All interviews were audio and video
recorded.
Procedure
Ethics committee approval was obtained. Participants took part in two sessions. At the
first session participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (ECI or SI), having
61
signed a consent form after reading general information about the study. Immediately after, they
were shown the video recording and then administered three memory tests. Memory test
administration order was varied. A second session took place approximately 48 hours later and
each participant was interviewed with either the ECI or SI and asked to give an error rate
estimate immediately after each interview phase. Error estimate for the ‘Summary’ interview
phase was not asked because many participants did not provide any new detail at this interview
phase. After the interview, all participants were asked to give an overall error rate estimate and
completed the post-interview questionnaire.
Interview conditions
Interview protocols were adapted from Milne and Bull (2003) for the Portuguese
language. Both interview protocols involved seven main phases: (1) preliminary phase; (2) free
report; (3) open-ended questioning; (4) second retrieval; (5) third retrieval (for new information
only); (6) summary; and (7) closure.
During phase 1 (preliminary phase), procedures like greeting, establishing rapport,
explaining the instructions and purpose of the interview to the witness and asking not to guess
were followed for both interview groups. ECI condition included transfer of control and report
everything instruction.
During phase 2 (free report), participants were asked to recall what they could remember
about the video in any order and pace they wished. In the ECI condition they were reminded to
report everything they could remember with as much detail as possible and mental reinstatement
of context was applied.
During phase 3 (open-ended questioning), three open-ended questions were asked to
each participant according to his/her free report (e.g., ‘Please describe the crime scene’ - if the
participant previously reported seeing the crime scene). For the ECI condition, mental imagery
instructions were used — e.g.:
you told me you looked at the robber when he entered the bank. Can you please
close your eyes…, think about everything you can remember concerning him…, his
face …, his clothes …, his actions …, and when you have a full picture of him in
your mind, describe everything you can remember about him.
During phase 4 (second retrieval), participants were asked to report what they could
remember about the video once again. In both conditions participants were encouraged to give
62
this second report and the importance of such procedure was explained. In the ECI condition
participants were asked to recall the video in reverse order.
During phase 5 (third retrieval), participants were asked to focus one last time on the
video and report any new detail they could remember, if possible. In both interview conditions the
importance of such a procedure was explained and participants were encouraged to do their
best. In the ECI condition, participants were asked to adopt a different internal perspective to try
to remember new details: ‘(…) please focus on the event as if it was a common event at the bank
instead of a robbery, as you probably assumed before seeing the robber entering the bank (…)’.
On phase 6 (summary), the interviewer summarized what he understood of the witness
account and asked her/him to correct him if he misheard or misinterpreted any part of the
statement. He also told her/him to interrupt him if she/he could remember any new detail.
On the last phase (closure), appreciation for participants’ cooperation was acknowledged
and neutral topics were again discussed. These last two phases were exactly alike for both
interview groups.
Overall, the differences between the ECI and SI protocols were the four cognitive
mnemonics, transfer of control instruction and mental imagery. Both interview protocols included
procedures such as rapport building and appropriate questioning (e.g., witness-compatible
questioning) because these are considered an essential aspect of any investigative interview.
Thus, we focused on the effect the remaining components, only applied in the ECI condition,
would have on recall. Fisher and Geilseman’s (1992) guidelines for conducting the ECI were
followed and all cognitive, social and communicative components they described were included in
the ECI protocol.
Coding
Recordings of each interview were coded using the template scoring technique from
Memon, Holley, Wark, Bull, and Köhnken (1996). A comprehensive list of details in the video
recording was compiled, and units of information were categorized as referring to the following:
(1) person; (2) action; (3) object; (4) location; (5) conversation; and (6) sound, resulting in 378
units of information. Recalled information was classified as either correct, incorrect (e.g., saying
the shirt was brown when it was black) or confabulation (mentioning a detail or event which was
not present or did not happen). The phase within the interview in which a unit of information was
recalled was also coded. If a unit of information (correct or not) was repeated during the same or
a subsequent phase, that information was scored only the first time (Prescott et al., 2011).
Subjective statements or opinions were disregarded (e.g., ‘He was really good looking!’).
63
Inter-rater reliability
To assess inter-rater reliability, 11 (25%) interviews were selected randomly and scored
independently by a researcher who was naive to the aims of the experiment and hypothesis, but
familiar with the template method of scoring interviews and had access to the crime video.
Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated for correct information, incorrect
information and confabulations and for the six information categories (person, action, etc.). High
inter-rater reliability was found for all measures in that the values of the ICC ranged between
.979 and 1.000, with an overall ICC of .992.
Results
Exploratory data analysis was used to decide whether to conduct parametric versus
nonparametric statistical tests when interval or ratio scale variables were included in such
statistical tests. Bonferroni corrections were applied when multiple statistical tests were
conducted on a single data set to avoid type 1 error (Field, 2009).
Accuracy and units of information
Participants in the ECI condition did recall more units of information (M = 76, SD =
24.71) in comparison with the control group (M = 58, SD = 13.91, t (42) = 2.96, p = .005, d =
.89, 95% CI [—30.11, —5.71]. Therefore, as expected the ECI protocol (M = 35.32, SD = 10.69)
took longer to conduct (measured in minutes) than the SI protocol (M = 22.76, SD = 6.58), t
(42) = 4.69, p < .001, d = 1.41, 95% CI [—17.96, —.7.15]. As seen in Table 2.1, no
differences were found between the two interviews regarding proportion of (i) correct recall (ratio
between the number of correct units of information recalled over all the recalled units of
information), t (42) = .96, p = .343, d = .29; (ii) errors (ratio between the number of errors
produced over all recalled units of information), t (42) = 1.12, p = .269, d = .34; and (iii)
confabulations (ratio between the number of confabulated information over all units of
information), t (42) = .80 p = .431, d = .24. Thus, participants interviewed with the ECI were able
to provide more information without increasing the proportion of errors and confabulations in
their reports.
64
Table 2.1. Proportion values (mean and standard deviation) for correct recall, errors and confabulations, according
to the interview condition.
We first conducted a one-way within-subjects ANOVA to see if accuracy, measured in
correct recall proportion, was stable across all information categories (person vs. object vs. action
vs. location vs. conversation vs. sound). We found no differences in correct recall proportion
according to information category, F (2.61, 80.92) = .93, p = .421, 2 = .03. Regarding
interview phases, we found only during free recall participants interviewed with the ECI (M = 37,
SD = 16) recalled significantly more information than SI participants (M = 24, SD = 8), t (42) =
3.37, p = .002, d = .54, 95% CI [—20.64, —5.18]. As seen in Table 2.2, both groups produced
most information at free recall and questioning phase, recalling only a few new details at the
subsequent phases.
Enhanced Cognitive Interview Structured Interview
Interview Phase M SD M SD
Free Report 36.50 2.71 23.59 2.71
Questioning 29.32 2.04 25.82 2.04
Second recall 4.41 .66 4.46 .66
Third recall 3.23 .51 2.64 .51
Summary 2.60 .47 1.60 .47
Table 2.2. Mean (M ) and standard deviation (SD ) values for the number of recalled units of information in each
interview phase, according to interview condition.
Interview appropriateness
We found participants who evaluated the interview appropriateness as higher also
recalled more units of information, rs = .32, p = .037, 95% CI [.02, .61] and reported more interest
in being an interviewee, rs = .38, p = .011, 95% CI [.08, .66].
Correct recall Error Confabulation
ECI .86 (.07) .09 (.04) .05 (.04)
SI .87 (.05) .08 (.05) .05 (.03)
65
Error estimate
Participants estimated their error rate was higher during the questioning phase (27%
error rate), followed by the second recall attempt (20%), the third recall attempt (19%), and lastly
free recall phase (17%). However, no differences in accuracy across different interview phases
was found, F (2.70, 64.88) = 2.23, p = .099, 2 = .09. No correlation between participants’
error estimate for the interview and their real error/confabulation rate (ratio between the number
of errors and confabulations produced over all produced units of information) was found, r = .23,
p = .123. Similar nonsignificant results were found for each individual interview phase. Lastly, we
found participants’ error estimate for the interview (M = 27%, SD = 12%) was significantly higher
than their real error/confabulation rate (M = 13%, SD = 6%), t (43) = 7.46, p < .001, d = 1.39,
95% CI [—.17, —.10].
Memory performance
No correlations were found between participants’ scores on the memory tests and their
subsequent performance on the interview in terms of correct recall proportion and amount of
recalled information. Performance on each memory test was also not associated with
performance on the remaining memory tests. Since working memory could influence the
performance of the ECI group at the Reverse Order and Change Perspective mnemonics, we
tested if there was a correlation between participants’ performance on the Working Memory Span
Test and their performance on these two mnemonics. No correlation was found. We also tested if
participants’ results on Faces Recognition Test were correlated to the number, and accuracy, of
recalled person details. No correlation was found. Lastly, we tested if participants’ results on
Spatial Span test were correlated to the number, and accuracy, of produced location details.
Again, we found no correlation between these variables. Therefore, participants’ results on the
memory tests do not seem to be related to their subsequent performance at the interview.
Discussion
This study found a Portuguese version of the ECI (versus a Portuguese version of the SI)
produced more units of information without compromising accuracy. Major differences regarding
the amount of elicited information according to interview condition were found for free recall.
Report accuracy was stable across different interview phases and information categories. We
found a higher perception of interview appropriateness was associated with more detailed
reports and more interest in being an interviewee. Performance on memory tests was not
66
related to witnesses’ subsequent recall, and witnesses’ error estimate was not associated to
their real error rate.
Previously published studies suggest the ECI superiority effect could be consistent
across different countries (Stein & Memon, 2006). We found a Portuguese version of the ECI to
increase the amount of recalled information without compromising accuracy, that is, without
increasing the error and confabulation proportion. Professionals have now available a
Portuguese version of the ECI which has been tested and found to maximize the amount of
elicited information. Such findings are crucial for Portuguese police forces and other relevant
professionals because gathering more details from a crime witness, or suspect, might
determine the outcome of the investigation (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992).
We found free report was largely responsible for the ECI superiority effect because only
at free report the ECI elicited significantly more details than the SI. Thus, mental reinstatement
of context, report everything and transfer of control procedures, which are exclusive to the ECI,
are essential to obtain more information during free report. Our study supports previous findings
(Dando, Wilcock, & Milne, 2009; Dando, Wilcock, Milne, & Henry, 2009; Davis, McMahon, &
Greenwood, 2005; Luca, Raffaella, Elisa, & Fiorella, 2011) which suggest shortened ECI variants
can be applied when time constraint is a major investigative issue. However, the interviewer
should make sure to take the time to always include mental reinstatement of context, report
everything and transfer of control instructions during the free report phase.
Accuracy, that is, the number of correct units of information elicited by a participant
divided by all units of information reported by such participant, was similar across the whole
interview and across different information categories (person, action, etc.). Such findings have
two major implications. First, these support when appropriate open-ended questions are used,
accuracy can be maintained during the whole interview. Accuracy values for free report phase,
where no questions were asked, and the questioning phase, where open-ended questions were
used, were similar. Therefore, although using inadequate questions, such as leading questions,
can have a negative impact on accuracy (Goodman & Melinder, 2007), the use of adequate
open-ended questions does not necessarily decrease this value. Second, because accuracy
values were similar for all information categories, these results suggest professionals should not
consider witnesses to be more accurate when recalling details about a given information category
(e.g., person details), in comparison with another one (e.g., action details). Such results have
major implications in the ‘applied’ field (e.g., when evaluating the credibility of a given detail in
court).
67
Our study also supports the hypothesis that witnesses’ perceptions regarding the interview
can have a major impact on their report (Ballardin et al., 2013; Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). To
our knowledge, this is the first study to access whether witnesses’ perceptions could be related to
the amount of recalled information, as suggested by Fisher & Geiselman (2010). We found a
higher perception of interview appropriateness was correlated with a higher number of reported
units of information and higher interest in being an interviewee. Such findings are supported by
previous research which suggests communicative and social factors, such as rapport and working
alliance, are very important (Ballardin et al., 2013; Vanderhallen & Vervaeke, 2014; Vanderhallen
et al., 2011) and associated with better recall (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Read et al., 2009;
Walsh & Bull, 2012). Our results are also consistent with findings from other fields of Psychology
(e.g., Clinical Psychology), which repeatedly demonstrated clients’ perception of the therapist
attributes and the therapy itself can influence therapeutic alliance as well as the outcome of the
therapy (Ackerman & Hilsenroth, 2003; Martin et al., 2000). This has major implications for real-
life investigations. For instance, the interviewer should always explain to the witness why every
procedure is being used during the interview (e.g., explaining why it is important to close her/his
eyes). If the interviewer fails to do this, even what could be the most effective procedure can be
perceived as inappropriate by the interviewee and have a negative impact on recall.
Previous research suggests witnesses are able to use metacognitive techniques such as
report option (Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996), confidence judgments (Allwood et al., 2005; Roberts &
Higham, 2002), adjusting report precision (Evans & Fisher, 2010) or frequency judgments
(Sniezek & Buckley, 1991), to monitor their own report. Furthermore, metacognitive techniques
can be effectively used in very different situations and contexts, such as selections from lineups
(Lindsay et al., 2013), cued recall tasks (Luna & Martín-Luengo, 2012) and investigative
interviews such as the ECI (Allwood et al., 2005; Paulo et al., 2015; Roberts & Higham, 2002).
However, to our knowledge, this was the first study to evaluate if witnesses are able to provide an
accurate error estimative for their report, and we found witnesses were unable to estimate their
error rate for their overall report and for each individual interview phase. Such results are
supported by previous literature which suggests when confidence judgments are accurate,
frequency judgments usually result in underconfidence (Sniezek & Buckley, 1991). Using a very
similar methodology to the one we have adopted for this study, several authors (Allwood et al.,
2005; Paulo et al., 2015; Roberts & Higham, 2002) found witnesses were able to use different
types of confidence judgments (e.g., numerical vs qualitative; instructed vs. spontaneous) to
evaluate report accuracy. According to Sniezek and Buckley (1991), this realism for confidence
judgments performed during, or after, the course of investigative interviews might explain why
68
participants over-evaluated their error rate when frequency judgments were asked, believing they
committed more errors and confabulations than they actually did. Such results support Sniezek
and Buckley’s (1991) dual-process account theory stating confidence judgments and frequency
judgments have very different natures and different accuracy values can be expected when both
judgments are used in similar situations. Furthermore, both interviews (ECI and SI) remarkably
achieved very high accuracy, which might further explain why participants were underconfident
and over-evaluated their error rate. Therefore, our study does not support using frequency
judgments to evaluate report accuracy in an interview setting. Other methods to evaluate and
enhance report accuracy, such as accounting for witnesses’ spontaneous verbal confidence
judgments (Paulo et al., 2015), have shown to be much more effective for this purpose.
Lastly, our results suggest there is no relation between witnesses’ performance on
memory tests and their subsequent performance during the interview. Although Morgan et al.
(2007) found trait ability to remember human faces was related to witnesses’ accuracy when
selecting a target person at a sequential photo presentation, we could not replicate such findings
on an interview setting. Many factors can explain why we found different results. First, we asked
participants to describe with as much detail as possible the target subject (recall task), instead
of identifying her/him at a photo presentation (recognition task). Many authors (e.g., Bower,
2000) suggest recall tasks differ considerably from recognition tasks not only in terms of
memory capacity but also in terms of how they affect different phenomena’s (e.g., false
memories production). Second, our study was not conducted under highly emotional
circumstances during the encoding phase, and highly emotional events are remembered
differently from neutral events (Reisberg & Heuer, 2004).
Furthermore, it is quite possible report quality cannot be estimated by memory test
performance because variables such as witnesses’ motivation (Paulo et al., 2015), perceptions
about the interview and interviewer (Ballardin et al., 2013), as well as interviewers’ performance
(among others), can have a major impact on witnesses’ report on the course of an investigative
interview and need to be accounted for evaluating witnesses’ performance (Fisher & Geiselman,
2010). This might explain why none of the memory capacity tests scores was related to
witnesses’ subsequent performance. These results have a major impact for our judicial system.
Judges, attorneys, police officers, or other relevant professionals should not consider a
witness’s report to be ‘poor’ because she or he had low results on a psychological memory
evaluation or self-reported to have probably committed many mistakes during recall. Instead,
these professionals should account other factors to evaluate report quality, such as the type of
questioning used during the interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992).
69
Acknowledgements
We express our gratitude to the Portuguese governmental institution ‘Fundação para a
Ciência e a Tecnologia’ (grant number: SFRH/BD/84817/2012) for funding this study, as well
as Dr. Becky Milne (of the University of Portsmouth) for her help and support.
References
Ackerman, S. J., & Hilsenroth, M. J. (2003). A review of therapist characteristics and techniques
positively impacting the therapeutic alliance. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 1–33.
doi:10.1016/S0272-7358(02)00146-0
Allwood, C., Ask, K., & Granhag, P. (2005). The Cognitive Interview: Effects on the realism in
witnesses’ confidence in their free recall. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11, 183–198.
doi:10.1080/10683160512331329943
Aschermann, E., Mantwill, M., & Köhnken, G. (1991). An independent replication of the
effectiveness of the Cognitive Interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5, 489–495.
doi:10.1002/acp.2350050604
Baddeley, A. D. (2002). Is working memory still working? European Psychologist, 7, 85–97.
doi:10.1027//1016-9040.7.2.85
Ballardin, M., Stein, L., & Milne, R. (2013). Além das técnicas de entrevista: características
individuais em entrevista investigativa com testemunhas. [Beyond the interview
techniques: Individual characteristics in investigative interviews with witnesses]. Revista
Brasileira de Segurança Pública, 7, 6–16.
Bower, G. (1967). A multicomponent theory of the memory trace. In K.W. Spence, & J. T. Spence
(Eds.). The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 1, pp. 229–325). New York, NY:
Academic Press.
Bower, G. (2000). A brief history of human memory. In E. Tulving, & F.I.M. Craik (Eds.),The
Oxford handbook of memory (pp. 3–32). New York: Oxford University Press.
Brewer, N., Weber, N., Wootton, D., & Lindsay, S. (2012). Identifying the bad guy in a lineup
using confidence judgments under deadline pressure. Psychological Science, 23, 1208–
1214. doi:10.1177/0956797612441217
Campos, L., & Alonso-Quecuty, M. (2008). Language crimes and the Cognitive Interview: Testing
its efficacy in retrieving a conversational event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22, 1211–
1227. doi:10.1002/acp.1430
70
Colomb, C., & Ginet, M. (2012). The Cognitive Interview for use with adults: An empirical test of
an alternative mnemonic and of a partial protocol. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 35–
47. doi:10.1002/acp.1792
Colomb, C., Ginet, M., Wright, D., Demarchi, S., & Sadler, C. (2013). Back to the real: Efficacy
and perception of a modified cognitive interview in the field. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 27, 574–583. doi:10.1002/ acp.2942
Conway, A. R., Kane, M. J., Bunting, M. F., Hambrick, D. Z., Wilhelm, O., & Engle, R. W. (2005).
Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide. Psychonomic
Bulletin & Review, 12, 769–786. doi:10.3758/BF03196772
Dando, C. J., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2009). The Cognitive Interview: The efficacy of a modified
mental reinstatement of context procedure for frontline police investigators. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 23, 138–147. doi:10.1002/acp.1451
Dando, C. J., Wilcock, R., Milne, R., & Henry, L. (2009). A modified cognitive interview procedure
for frontline police investigators. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 698–716.
doi:10.1002/acp.1501
Davis, M., McMahon, M., & Greenwood, K. (2005). The efficacy of mnemonic components of
the Cognitive Interview: Towards a shortened variant for time-critical investigations.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 75–93. doi:10.1002/acp.1048
Evans, J. R., & Fisher, R. P. (2010). Eyewitness memory: Balancing the accuracy, precision and
quantity of information through metacognitive monitoring and control. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 25, 501–508. doi:10.1002/acp.1722
Field, A. P. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS. London, Middx: Sage.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative
interviewing: The Cognitive Interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (2010). The Cognitive Interview method of conducting police
interviews: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence.
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 321–328.
doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2010.09.004
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., Firstenberg, I., Hutton, L., Sullivan, S. J., Avetissian, I. V., &
Prosk, A. L. (1984). Enhancement of eyewitness memory: An empirical evaluation of
the Cognitive Interview. Journal of Police and Science Administration, 12, 74–80.
Gigerenzer, G. Hoffrage, U., & Kleinbölting, H. (1991). Probabilistic mental models: A
Brunswikian theory of confidence. Psychological Review, 98, 506–528.
doi:10.1037/0033-295X.98.4.506
71
Higham, P. A., Luna, K., & Bloomfield, J. (2010). Trace-strength and source-monitoring
accounts of accuracy and metacognitive resolution in the misinformation paradigm.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 324–335. doi:10.1002/acp.1694
Koriat, A., & Goldsmith, M. (1996). Monitoring and control processes in the strategic regulation of
memory accuracy. Psychological Review, 103, 490–517.
Goodman, G. S., & Melinder A. (2007). Child witness research and forensic interviews of young
children: A review. Criminal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 1–19.
doi:10.1348/135532506X156620
Larsson, A. S., Granhag, P. A., & Spjut, E. (2002). Children’s recall and the Cognitive Interview:
Do the positive effects hold over time? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 203–214.
doi:10.1002/acp.863
Liberman, V. (2004). Local and global judgments of confidence. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 729–732. doi:10.1037/0278-
7393.30.3.729
Lindsay, R., Kalmet, N., Leung, J., Bertrand, M., Sauer, J., & Sauerland, M. (2013). Confidence
and accuracy of lineups selections and rejections: Postdicting rejection accuracy with
confidence. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2, 179–184.
doi:10.1016/j. jarmac.2013.06.002
Luca, B., Raffaella, N., Elisa, G., & Fiorella, G. (2011). The Enhanced Cognitive Interview: A study
on the efficacy of shortened variants and single techniques. Journal of Cognitive
Psychology, 23, 311–321. doi:10.1080/ 20445911.2011.497485
Luna, K., & Martín-Luengo, B. (2012). Confidence-accuracy calibration with general knowledge
and eyewitness memory cued recall questions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 289–
295. doi:10.1002/acp.1822
Martin, D. J., Garske, J. P., & Davis, M. K. (2000). Relation of the therapeutic alliance with
outcome and other variables: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 68, 438–450. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.68.3.43
Memon, A., Holley, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Köhnken, G. (1996). Reducing suggestibility in child
witness interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 503–518.
doi:10.1002/(SIECI)1099-0720(199612)10:63.0.CO;2-R
Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2003) Does the Cognitive Interview help children to resist the effects of
suggestive questioning? Legal and Criminological Psychology, 8, 21–38.
doi:10.1348/135532503762871219
72
Morgan, C. A., Hazlett, G., Baranoski, M., Doran, A., Southwick, S., & Loftus, E. (2007).
Accuracy of eyewitness identification is significantly associated with performance on a
standardized test of face recognition. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 30,
213–223. doi:10.1016/j. ijlp.2007.03.005.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The Enhanced Cognitive Interview: Towards
a better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science
& Management, 15, 190–199. doi:10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B, & Bull, R. (2015). The Enhanced Cognitive Interview:
Expressions of uncertainty, motivation and its relation with report accuracy. Psychology,
Crime and Law, 22, 1-31. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2015.1109089
Prescott, K., Milne, R., Clark, J. (2011). How effective is the Enhanced Cognitive Interview when
aiding recall retrieval of older adults including memory for conversation? Journal of
Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8, 257–270. doi:10.1002/jip.142
Reisberg, D., & Heuer, F. (2004). Memory for emotional events. In D. Reisberg, & P. Hertel
(Eds.), Emotion and memory (pp. 3–41). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Riccó, A. (Director), & Riccó, R. (Director) (2004). O Assalto [The robbery] [Television series
episode]. In V. Castelo (Producer), Inspector Max. Lisbon: Produções Fictícias.
Rivard, J. R., Fisher, R. P., Robertson, B., & Mueller, D. H. (2014). Testing the Cognitive Interview
with professional interviewers: Enhancing recall of specific details of recurring events.
Applied Cognitive Psychology. Retrieved from
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp. 3026/full
Read, J. M., Powell, M. B., Kebbell, M. R., & Milne, R. (2009). Investigative interviewing of
suspected sex offenders: A review of what constitutes best practice. International Journal
of Police Science & Management, 11, 442–459. doi:10.1350/ijps.2009.00.0.143
Roberts, W.T., & Higham, P.A. (2002). Selecting accurate statements from the cognitive interview
using confidence ratings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 33–43.
doi:10.1037/1076-898X.8.1.33
Sniezek, J. A., & Buckley, T. (1991). Confidence depends on level of aggregation. Journal of
Behavioral Decision Making, 4, 263–272. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960040404
Stein, L. M., & Memon, A. (2006). Testing the efficacy of the Cognitive Interview in a developing
country. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 597–605. doi:10.1002/acp.1211
Tulving, E. (1991). Concepts of human memory. In L. R. Squire, N. M. Weinberger, G. Lynch, &
J. L. McGaugh (Eds.), Memory: Organization and locus of change (pp. 3–32). New York:
Oxford University Press.
73
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic
memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373.
Vanderhallen, M., Vervaeke, G., & Holmberg, U. (2011). Witness and suspect perceptions of
working alliance and interviewing style. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender
Profiling, 8, 110–130. doi:10.1002/jip.138
Vanderhallen, M., & Vervaeke, G. (2014). Between interviewer and suspect: The role of the
working alliance in investigative interviewing. In R. Bull (Ed.), Investigative interviewing
(pp. 63–90). New York: Springer.
Verkampt, F., & Ginet, M. (2009). Variations of the Cognitive Interview: Which one is the most
effective in enhancing children’s testimonies? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1279–
1296. doi:10.1002/acp.1631
Vrij, A., Mann, S. A., Fisher, R. P., Leal, S., Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2008). Increasing cognitive
load to facilitate lie detection: The benefit of recalling an event in reverse order. Law and
Human Behavior, 32, 253–265. doi:10.1007/s10979-007-9103-y
Walsh, D., & Bull, R. (2012). Examining rapport in investigative interviews with suspects: Does its
building and maintenance work? Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 27, 73–84.
doi:10.1007/s11896-011-9087-x
Wechsler, D. (1997). WMS-III: Wechsler Memory Scale Administration and Scoring Manual (3rd
ed.). San Antonio, TX: PsychCorp.
Wright, A., & Holliday, R. (2006). Enhancing the recall of young, young–old and old–old adults
with cognitive interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 19–43.
doi:10.1002/acp.1260
74
75
Article 3
The enhanced cognitive interview: Expressions of uncertainty,
motivation and its relation with report accuracy
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2015). The Enhanced Cognitive Interview: Expressions of uncertainty,
motivation and its relation with report accuracy. Psychology, Crime & Law, 22, 366-381.
doi:10.1080/1068316X.2015.1109089
76
77
The enhanced cognitive interview: Expressions of uncertainty,
motivation and its relation with report accuracy
ABSTRACT
The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI) is one of the most widely studied and used methods to
interview witnesses. However, ECI research has mainly focused on increasing report size and
somewhat overlooked how to improve and evaluate report accuracy. No study evaluated if witnesses’
spontaneous expressions of uncertainty are accurate metacognitive judgments, nor if witnesses’
motivation during the interview affects report accuracy. This study examined how witnesses’
judgments of recall ‘uncertainty’ and their motivation perception could relate to report accuracy.
Forty-four psychology students watched a mock robbery video recording and were interviewed 48
hours later with either the Portuguese version of the ECI or a Structured Interview (SI). Afterward,
participants’ motivation was assessed and units of information were classified as ‘certainties’ or
‘uncertainties’. Results suggest our ECI protocol was effective since participants interviewed with the
ECI produced more information without compromising accuracy. ‘Uncertainties’ were less accurate
than ‘certainties’, and their exclusion raised overall, ECI, and SI, accuracy. More motivated
participants had better recall accuracy. Accounting for witnesses’ motivation and spontaneous verbal
expressions of uncertainty may be effective and time-saving procedures to increase accuracy. These
are key points professionals and researchers should consider.
Keywords: enhanced cognitive interview; motivation; certainty; metacognition; metamemory
As several researchers (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Prescott, Milne, & Clark, 2011) have
acknowledged over the years, interviewing witnesses is a key procedure which frequently
determines the outcome of a police investigation. However, memory is not so accurate and what
witnesses actually report rarely corresponds fully with what they remember (Bower, 1967),
particularly when inadequate interviewing techniques are used (Flin, Boon, Knox, & Bull, 1992).
To address this issue, Geiselman et al. (1984) developed the Cognitive Interview (CI).
The CI originally included four cognitive mnemonics: report everything, mental reinstatement of
context, change order, and change perspective. The report everything mnemonic consists of
instructing witnesses to report everything they can remember, whether it seems trivial or not
(Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). The mental reinstatement of context consists of asking witnesses to
mentally recreate the to-be-recalled event, as well as their physiological, cognitive, and emotional
states at the time of the crime. Lastly, the change order (asking the witness to recall the event in
a different chronological order – e.g. reverse order) and change perspective mnemonics (to recall
78
the event from a different perspective – e.g. report what the witness saw from another witness’
point of view) can be used to try to obtain information which has not yet been recalled. A few
years later, this was further developed by Fisher and Geiselman (1992) as the Enhanced
Cognitive Interview (ECI). Several social and communicative components such as rapport
building, witness-compatible questioning, transferring control of the interview to the witness and
mental imagery, crucial for conducting good investigative interviews, were added (see Fisher &
Geiselman, 1992 or Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2013, for more information about ECI
mnemonics and components, as well as theory underlying such procedures [Tulving, 1991;
Tulving & Thomson, 1973]).
As Paulo et al. (2013) also reviewed, the ECI has been found to be effective in different
countries (e.g. USA, UK, Australia, Brazil), with different types of witness (e.g. children, adults,
elderly), with various delays between the crime and the interview (e.g. minutes to weeks), with a
variety of events (e.g. crime, traffic accident, phone call), both in laboratory and field studies.
These studies consistently showed this interview technique increases the amount of correct
information recalled by witnesses, while maintaining accuracy, i.e. the number of correct units of
information proportionate to all recalled units of information. Such a finding is commonly
referred to as ECI superiority effect (Akehurst, Milne, & Köhnken, 2003; Aschermann,
Mantwill, & Köhnken, 1991; Campos & Alonso-Quecuty, 1999; Dando & Milne, 2010; Higham &
Memon, 1999; Köhnken, Milne, Memon, & Bull, 1999; Memon, Holley, Wark, Bull, & Köhnken,
1997; Rivard, Fisher, Robertson, & Mueller, 2014; Stein & Memon, 2006). As mentioned above,
most of the ECI research is focused on how to increase the amount of produced information
without decreasing report accuracy. Nonetheless, actually increasing or evaluating report
accuracy, i.e. the proportion of correct details in a given statement, is also crucial for police
investigations (Milne & Bull, 1999). It could be very valuable if it could be determined which of
the recalled information is more likely to be correct and which may be incorrect. One of the most
promising methods to achieve this goal could be using metacognitive techniques for monitoring
recall (Evans & Fisher, 2010).
Metacognition refers to what we know about our own cognition and how we can use such
knowledge to regulate cognition, as well as what we know about our own memory and
mnemonic strategies (metamemory), and how we can use such knowledge to improve our
memory, particularly in terms of quality (Metcalfe & Shimamura, 1996). In fact, research on
metacognition contributed to researchers changing their focus from improving report quantity to
improving report quality (Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996). Subsequently, several studies addressed
how metacognitive techniques can be used to improve or evaluate witnesses’ accuracy (Higham,
79
Luna, & Bloomfield, 2010; Roberts & Higham, 2002). For the purpose of the present study, we
will focus on three of those techniques: confidence judgments; frequency judgments; and report
option.
Several studies suggest in some situations, such as selections from lineups (Brewer,
Weber, Wootton, & Lindsay, 2012; Lindsay et al., 2013), cued recall (Luna & Martín-Luengo,
2012), or free recall (Allwood, Ask, & Granhag, 2005), and when using the adequate
measures – calibration approach (Luna & Martín-Luengo, 2012), a positive relationship between
confidence and accuracy can be found. Therefore, higher accuracy for a given response can be
expected when witnesses are more confident such response is accurate. However, only two
studies have focused on how this procedure can be used to evaluate ECI report accuracy
(Allwood et al., 2005; Roberts & Higham, 2002). These authors interviewed witnesses with either
the ECI or a Structured Interview (SI), which is very similar to the ECI but does not include
some of its cognitive and social components (see ‘Method’ section). Afterwards, they asked
participants to provide confidence judgments for a small portion of their statements using a
numerical rating scale. Using this procedure, witnesses were able to distinguish between more
and less accurate information regardless of interview condition. Therefore, the statement portions
assigned with high confidence were more accurate than the full set of statements. However,
these studies focus on metacognitive procedures applied after the interview is conducted. After
finishing the interview, a small portion of the witness’ report which is selected by the interviewer
is rated in terms of confidence judgments. From this, two main concerns can be identified. First,
numerical confidence judgments performed after the interview has been conducted do not reflect
witnesses’ capacity to spontaneously differentiate statements which are less likely to be correct in
a natural fashion (O’Hagan et al., 2006). Second, such procedures require a considerable
amount of interviewer’s time, for instance, for applying these scales and selecting the limited
information which will be evaluated by the interviewee. Therefore, it is difficult to use such
procedure in a holistic manner at a real police interview setting.
Asking witnesses to predict how many units of information are correct, or wrong, for a
given part of their statement (frequency judgments) could be a less time demanding approach to
evaluate report accuracy (Gigerenzer, Hoffrage, & Kleinbölting, 1991; Liberman, 2004; Sniezek &
Buckley, 1991). However, several authors questioned the accuracy of frequency judgments in
interview settings. For instance, Granhag, Jonsson, and Allwood (2004) interviewed
participants with either the ECI or an SI and subsequently asked them to answer to 45 forced-
choice questions and give a confidence judgment for each question. Participants were then
asked to provide a frequency judgment (how many questions they had answered correctly) and
80
the authors found participants severely underestimated their actual performance. Paulo,
Albuquerque, Saraiva, and Bull (2015) evaluated if witnesses were able to perform accurate
frequency judgments for each interview phase, as well as for overall recall, during an investigative
interview. These authors presented the same (mock) crime recording to two groups of
participants and interviewed them with either an ECI or an SI. After each interview phase (e.g.
free recall, questioning phase, second retrieval, etc.), they asked participants to estimate their
error rate for that particular phase (frequency judgment). The same question was asked at the
end of the interview for overall recall. Regardless of the interview phase, both groups were unable
to successfully evaluate their error rate, there being no association between participants’
frequency judgments and participants ‘real’ error rate.
Other studies (Evans & Fisher, 2010; Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996) suggest witnesses can
improve their accuracy by using other metacognitive control techniques, namely exercising
‘report option’ or adjusting ‘report precision’. Exercising ‘report option’ refers to giving witnesses
an opportunity to withhold information. For instance, if the witness is not sure about her ability to
accurately answer a question, or to recall part of the event, she can withhold such information –
e.g. say ‘I do not remember’. Using this procedure, witnesses seem to be capable of withholding
more unreliable information and maintaining the reliable recall, consequently improving report
accuracy. Accordingly, most interview protocols, including the ECI and SI, instruct witnesses not
to guess when they do not know the answer to a question or do not recall part of the event.
However, there are more levels of confidence between a ‘full guess’ (e.g. I assume he had a
black shirt because robbers always wear black shirts) and a ‘full certainty’ (e.g. I’m sure the
robber had a black shirt). For instance, witnesses commonly use spontaneous verbal expressions
of uncertainty (e.g. I think, maybe, I believe, etc.) to report somewhat uncertain information. ECI
research (Dando & Milne, 2010; Prescott et al., 2011) usually disregards such expressions
during coding and analysis. Thus, ‘I think the robber had a gun’ would (for example) simply be
coded as ‘the robber had a gun’. Instead of disregarding such prepositions, the interviewer could
ask witnesses to withhold all ‘uncertainties’ (e.g. I think the robber had a black shirt) in order to
increase report accuracy. However, such an instruction may have several problems: (1) being
somewhat incompatible with the ‘Report Everything’ mnemonic. In the same way that ‘irrelevant’
recall might activate ‘relevant’ recall (Tulving, 1991), an ‘uncertainty’ might activate a ‘certainty’.
Therefore, asking witnesses to withhold such information might undermine report length; (2)
even though a witness is not sure about that particular information (‘uncertainty’) the interviewer
might have other methods to verify the accuracy of such information (e.g. other witnesses’
reports, crime scene analysis, etc.). This could lead to omission of very valuable information;
81
and (3) research has not yet evaluated if units of information spontaneously preceded, or
followed (e.g. the robber had a black shirt, I think), by wording that expresses uncertainty
(‘uncertainties’) differ, in terms of accuracy, from units of information not preceded/followed by
such wording (‘certainties’).
To evaluate if spontaneous verbal expressions of uncertainty can be used to evaluate and
improve report accuracy, we decided to treat these two separately, and test: (a) if ‘certainties’
would involve greater accuracy than ‘uncertainties’ and (b) if the ECI superiority effect over an SI
(in terms of quantity of information) does not affect other parameters, such as ‘uncertainties’
proportion or the accuracy of such information. To date, no study has evaluated if witnesses are
able to perform spontaneous real-time memory monitoring for their account. This is crucial
because if witnesses are able to spontaneously discriminate less reliable information while
reporting the crime, differentiating ‘uncertainties’ from ‘certainties’ can be an easy, intuitive, and
time-saving way (O’Hagan et al., 2006) to differentiate less reliable information (‘uncertainties’)
from more reliable information (‘certainties’).
Another method to improve and estimate report accuracy might involve witnesses’
perception of their own motivation during the interview. Two studies (Read, Powell, Kebbell,
& Milne, 2009; Walsh & Bull, 2011) recently acknowledged witnesses’ perceptions toward the
interview process might determine how rapport is established and maintained throughout the
interview, which might be crucial during investigative interviews and associated with better
recall (Vallano & Compo, 2015). Fisher and Geiselman (2010) also suggested interviewing
witnesses involves more than mere use of cognitive techniques. They recognize the need for
more studies addressing witnesses’ attitudes toward the interview process and interviewer,
which is a topic that has yet received very little attention from researchers. Recent findings
(Ballardin, Stein, & Milne, 2013) suggest witnesses’ perceptions, such as perception of
interviewer effort and perception of their own motivation during the interview can have a major
influence on the outcome of an investigative interview. However, understanding how these
perceptions can influence witnesses’ report, for instance, in terms of report accuracy, is important
(Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). To our knowledge, such research questions have not yet been
addressed. Therefore, the present study examined how witnesses’ perceptions can influence their
report. We focused on whether witnesses’ perception of their own motivation was related to their
recall in terms of report accuracy because, as previously mentioned, improving report accuracy is
the main focus of this study. If more motivated witnesses achieve better report accuracy,
promoting witnesses’ motivation can be another possible method to further increase report
quality.
82
Overall, our main goal was to see if report accuracy can be increased and/or estimated
through two different procedures: (1) witnesses spontaneous metacognitive judgments and (2)
witnesses’ perception of their own motivation. We established three main hypotheses: (1)
‘uncertainties’ will be less accurate than ‘certainties’ because participants will be able to
homogeneously monitor the information they are providing throughout the interview (Allwood et
al., 2005; Evans & Fisher, 2010; Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996; Roberts & Higham, 2002). As a
result, removing ‘uncertainties’ from the report will increase accuracy; (2) ECI superiority effect
over an SI (in terms of information quantity) does not affect other parameters such as the
proportion of ‘uncertainties’ or, as several studies suggest (Aschermann et al., 1991; Dando &
Milne, 2010; Rivard et al., 2014), report accuracy. Therefore, longer reports are expected for the
ECI condition as a result of using effective cognitive mnemonics to improve recall; and (3)
witnesses who rate themselves as more motivated during the interview will have greater accuracy
because they are more motivated to provide a good report and possibly will apply more effort to
monitor their report through spontaneous metacognitive/metamemory techniques.
Method
Participants
A total of 44 Portuguese psychology students, 36 females and 8 males, with an age
range from 17 to 46 years old (M = 21, SD = 3) participated in this study for course credits.
We have used G*Power 3.1 (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) to conduct power
analysis based on effect sizes reported in a recent ECI meta-analysis review (Memon, Meissner,
& Fraser, 2010) to ensure our sample size was adequate. Both interview groups had 22
participants, 18 females and 4 males each. The ECI group age ranged from 17 to 46 years old
(M = 21, SD = 6) and the SI group age ranged from 18 to 34 years old (M = 21, SD = 4).
Design
A between subjects experimental design was used with interview condition as
independent variable with two levels: (1) ECI and (2) SI. The amount of reported information and
accuracy were measured in information units and proportion, respectively.
83
Materials
Participants watched the recording on a Fujitsu L7ZA LCD computer screen. The video
recording, which was edited from the second episode of the 2004 Portuguese television
drama ‘Inspector Max’ (Riccó & Riccó, 2004) was 3 minutes and 11 seconds long. This
nonviolent video recording shows a male armed subject walking inside a bank and taking several
hostages to carry a robbery. He verbally and physically interacts with them, with a cashier and a
police officer who later approaches the robber. After the interview was conducted, participants
were asked to evaluate their motivation during the interview (‘How do you evaluate your
motivation to testify during the interview?’) on a seven-point Likert scale (1 – very low; 2 – low; 3
– slightly low; 4 – moderate; 5 – slightly high; 6 – high; and 7 – very high). All interviews were
video and audio recorded.
Procedure
Ethics committee approval was obtained. Participants took part in two sessions. At the
first session, they were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (ECI vs. SI). Having signed a
consent form after reading general information about the study, participants were shown the
video recording. They were asked to pay as much attention as possible to the video recording
because they would be later interviewed about it. A second session took place approximately 48
hours later and each participant was interviewed with either the ECI or SI. After the interview, all
participants immediately answered the question regarding motivation perception.
Interview conditions
The interview protocols employed were translated and adapted from Milne and Bull
(2003) for the Portuguese language. Overall, the only differences between the ECI and SI
protocols were the four cognitive mnemonics, transfer of control instruction and mental imagery
(see Table 3.1). Both interview protocols included procedures such as rapport building and
appropriate questioning (e.g. witness-compatible questioning) because these are now considered
essential aspects of investigative interviews. Thus, we wanted to focus on the effect the remaining
components only applied in ECI condition would have on recall. All SI procedures were also
included in the ECI. Fisher and Geiselman’s (1992) guidelines for conducting the ECI were
followed. All cognitive, social and communicative components described in Fisher and Geiselman
(1992) were included in the ECI protocol.
84
Phase 1
Preliminary
Phase 2
Free Report
Phase 3
Open-ended
Questioning
Phase 4
Second
Retrieval
Phase 5
Third
Retrieval
Phase 6
Summary
E
ECI Transfer of control
Report everything
Context reinstatement
Report everything
Mental imagery
Change order Change perspective
X
X – No procedure specific to the ECI
Table 3.1. Differences between the two interview protocols: procedures only applied in the ECI condition according to
interview phase.
Both interview protocols enclosed seven main phases: (1) preliminary phase; (2) free
report; (3) open-ended questioning; (4) second retrieval; (5) third retrieval (for new information
only); (6) summary; and (7) closure.
During Phase 1 (preliminary phase), procedures such as greeting, establishing rapport,
explaining the instructions and interview purpose to the witness and asking not to guess were
followed for both interview protocols. However, the ECI condition included the transfer of control
instruction: ‘[ … ] you are the only one who saw the video and have the ability to report all
important information [ … ] you can tell me what happened in the order you desire and pause
whenever you want’; as well as the report everything instruction: ‘[ … ] please tell me everything
you remember with as much detail as you can [ … ] even details which might seem irrelevant to
you are very important to me [ … ] tell me everything that pops into your mind’.
During Phase 2 (free report), participants were asked to recall what they could remember
about the video in any order and pace they desired. In the ECI condition, they were reminded to
report everything they could remember with as much detail as possible and mental reinstatement
of context was applied:
[ … ] Try to remember the day you have watched the video [ … ] now picture the
crime scene in your mind [ … ] as clear as possible [ … ] picture all the sounds [
… ] all the objects [ … ] all the people [ … ] and now focus on what happened and
tell me everything you can remember.
85
During Phase 3 (open-ended questioning), three open-ended questions were asked to
each participant according to his/her free report (e.g. ‘Please describe the perpetrator’ – if the
participant previously reported seeing a criminal). However, for the ECI condition mental imagery
instructions were used – e.g.
You told me you looked at the perpetrator when he entered the bank because he
looked very anxious. Can you please close your eyes …, think about everything you
remember concerning him…, his clothes … , his face … , his behavior … and when
you have a full picture of him in your mind, describe everything you can
remember about him.
During Phase 4 (second retrieval), participants were asked to report what they could
remember about the video once again:
[ … ] I know it may seem redundant, but it is actually highly important you report
one more time what happened on the video [ … ] report not only new information
you might recall, but also all the information you’ve already reported [ … ].
In both conditions participants were encouraged to give this second report and the
importance of such procedure was explained. In the ECI condition participants were asked to
recall the video in reverse order:
[ … ] Please tell me what happened in reverse order [ … ] Focus on the last
episode you remember … then focus on the previous one … and so on [ … ].
What is the last episode you remember?
During Phase 5 (third retrieval), participants were asked to focus one more time on the
video and try to report any new detail they could remember, if possible. In both interview
conditions the importance of such a procedure was explained and participants were encouraged
to do the best they could. In the ECI condition, participants were asked to adopt a different
internal perspective to try to remember new details: ‘[ … ] please focus on the event as if it was a
common event at the bank instead of a robbery, as you probably assumed before seeing the
robber entering the bank [ … ]’.
86
On Phase 6 (summary), the interviewer summarized what he understood of the witness
account and asked her to correct him if he misheard, or misinterpreted, any part of the
statement. He also told her to interrupt him if she/he could remember any new detail while
hearing the summary. On the last phase (closure) appreciation for participants’ hard work and
cooperation was acknowledged and neutral topics were again discussed. These last two phases
were exactly alike for both interview conditions.
Interviewer training
An expert in the ECI who had followed several qualified courses on investigative interview
techniques, consisting of more than 50 hours of lectures, practice, role-playing exercises and
feedback/evaluation conducted all interviews. To assure interviewer performance was adequate
and consistent across interview conditions, interview protocols were read verbatim whenever
possible (e.g. open-ended questioning and summary phase need to be adapted according to
participants’ previous recall) and an independent researcher, which is also an expert on human
memory and forensic psychology, randomly checked 25% of the interviews using a structured
evaluation grid to evaluate verbal and nonverbal behavior.
Coding
Recordings of each interview were coded using the template scoring technique from
Memon et al. (1997). A comprehensive list of details in the video recording was compiled and
units of information were categorized as referring to: (1) person; (2) action; (3) object; (4)
location; (5) conversation; and (6) sound, resulting in 378 units of information. Recalled
information was classified as either correct, incorrect (e.g. saying the pistol was brown when it
was black), or confabulation (mentioning a detail or event which was not present or did not
happen). Also noted was the interview phase in which a unit of information was recalled. If a unit
of information (correct or not) was repeated during the same or a subsequent phase, that
information was scored only the first time it was mentioned (Prescott et al., 2011). We classified
units of information as either ‘certainties’ or ‘uncertainties’. As described above, when
participants spontaneously used verbal expressions of uncertainty (e.g. I think, maybe, I believe,
etc.) to report a unit of information they were uncertain about, such unit was classified as an
‘uncertainty’. Otherwise, units of information were labeled as ‘certainties’. Coders were provided
with a list of Portuguese words which are commonly used for expressing uncertainty. They have
used their best judgment to verify the participant’s intent when using this kind of uncertainty
87
expressions because, in very rare situations, these expressions could be used with other
purposes rather than express uncertainty. Therefore, in these exceptional cases the adjacent
information would not be rated as an ‘uncertainty’. Inter-rater reliability was assessed to measure
agreement on this measure as discussed in the following section. Subjective statements or
opinions were disregarded (e.g. ‘ the robber was gorgeous’).
Inter-rater reliability
To assess inter-rater reliability, 11 (25%) interviews were selected randomly and scored
independently by a researcher who was naive to the aims of the experiment and hypothesis, but
familiar with the template method of scoring interviews and had access to the crime video. Intra-
class correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated for correct information, incorrect information
and confabulations, as well as for ‘certainties’, ‘uncertainties’ and the six information categories
(person, action, etc.). High inter-rater reliability was found for all measures in that the values of
the ICC ranged between 0.979 and 1.000 with an overall ICC of 0.992.
Results
Bonferroni corrections were applied when multiple statistical tests were conducted on a
single data set to avoid type 1 error (Field, 2013).
General recall and accuracy
It was expected participants in the ECI condition would provide more correct units of
information in comparison with a control group (SI), without compromising accuracy.
Participants in the ECI condition recalled more correct units of information (M = 76, SD =
24.71) in comparison with the control group (M = 58, SD = 13.91), t (42) = 2.96, p = .005, d =
0.89, 95% CI [−30.11, −5.71].
As seen from Table 3.2, no differences were found between the two interviews regarding
proportion values of (i) correct recall (ratio between the number of correct units of information
recalled, over all units of information), t (42) = 0.96, p = .343, d = 0.29; (ii) errors (ratio between
the number of errors produced, over all units of information), t (42) = 1.12, p = .269, d = 0.34;
and (iii) confabulations (ratio between the number of confabulated information over all units of
information), t (42) = 0.80, p = .431, d = 0.24. Thus, participants interviewed with the ECI were
88
able to provide more information without increasing the proportion of errors and confabulations
on their reports (see Table 3.2).
Correct recall Error Confabulation
ECI .86 (.07) .09 (.04) .05 (.04)
SI .87 (.05) .08 (.05) .05 (.03)
Table 3.2. Proportion values (mean and SD) for correct recall, errors, and confabulations, according to interview condition.
‘Uncertainties’ frequency
We first conducted a two-way mixed-design 2 × 5 ANOVA to see if ‘uncertainties’
proportion (i.e. information units which are preceded, or followed, by expressions of uncertainty,
over all information units) was stable across interview conditions (ECI vs. SI), and interview
phases (Phase 2 vs. Phase 3 vs. Phase 4 vs. Phase 5 vs. Phase 6). Phase 1 (preliminary phase)
was not included in this analysis because participants were not asked to recall information at this
part of the interview. We found no main effect of interview condition on uncertainties proportion,
F (1, 12) = .09, p = .770, 2 = 0. Therefore, our results do not suggest participants in the ECI
condition produced a higher ‘uncertainties’ proportion (M = .14, SD = .08), in comparison to
the SI group (M = .12, SD = .07). Although we found a main effect of interview phase on
‘uncertainties’ proportion, F (4, 48) = 3.43, p = .02, 2 = .21, pairwise comparisons revealed
no significant differences between any of the different interview phases regarding this (M
phase 2 = .04; M phase 3 = .14; M phase 4 = .08; M phase 5 = .03; M phase 6 = .02).
There is also no interaction effect of interview condition and interview phase on ‘uncertainties’
proportion, F (4, 48) = 1.04, p = .394, 2 = .06.
Further analysis revealed report size (total number of details) is not associated with
proportion of produced ‘uncertainties’ (proportion of ‘uncertainties’ in a given report), r = .29, p =
.06. Therefore, our study does not support participants who are providing more units of
information are more uncertain about such information. There is also no correlation between
proportion of produced ‘uncertainties’ in a report and proportion of correct recall for the
remaining recall (proportion of correct information for ‘certainties’ only), r = .25, p = .10. Thus,
our data do not support participants who are providing more uncertainties are simultaneously
committing more errors/confabulations when recalling ‘certainties’.
89
‘Uncertainties’ accuracy
‘Uncertainties’ constituted a small proportion of overall recall (M = .13, SD = .08).
Furthermore, their exclusion from accuracy analysis raised this proportion value from .86 (overall
correct recall: number of correct units of information over the total number of produced units of
information) to .90 (correct recall for ‘certainties’ only: number of correct ‘certainties’ over all
produced ‘certainties’). Such difference was statistically significant, t (43) = 7.38, p < .001, d =
1.11, 95% CI [−.04, −.02]. Error proportion for ‘certainties’ only was significantly lower than
overall error proportion (number of errors over the total number of produced units of
information), t (43) = 6.65, p < .001, d = 1.02, 95% CI [−.22, −.11] and confabulation proportion
for ‘certainties’ only was also lower than overall confabulation proportion, t (43) = 3.22, p =
.002, d = 0.93, 95% CI [.03, .11]. Such results occur because, as shown in Table 3.3, correct
recall proportion for ‘uncertainties’ is low and significantly different from correct recall proportion
for ‘certainties’ only, t (43) = 7.99, p < .001, d = 1.21, 95% CI [.18, .30] in that .65 of
‘uncertainties’ were correct units of information, in comparison with ‘certainties’ that have a
.90 correct recall rate.
Similar results were found for the ECI and SI conditions alone. The exclusion of
‘uncertainties’ within the ECI accuracy analysis raised this from .86 (overall correct recall
proportion) to .89 (correct recall proportion for certainties only), t (21) = 7.01, p < .001, d =
1.49, 95% CI [−.04, −.02]. The exclusion of ‘uncertainties’ within the SI accuracy analyses also
raised this from .87 (overall correct recall proportion) to .90 (correct recall proportion value for
certainties only), t (21) = 4.30, p < .001, d = 0.92, 95% CI [−.05, −.02].
Correct recall Error Confabulation
‘Certanties’ .90 (.06) .06 (.04) .04 (.04)
‘Uncertanties’ .65 (.21) .23 (.19) .12 (.15)
Overall .86 (.06) .09 (.04) .05 (.04)
Table 3..3. Proportion values (mean and SD) for correct recall, errors, and confabulations for ‘certainties’, ‘uncertainties’, and both
types of information together (overall).
Witnesses’ motivation perception
Out of a seven-point Likert scale (1 – very low; 2 – low; 3 – slightly low; 4 – moderate; 5
– slightly high; 6 – high; and 7 – very high), only the highest four motivation levels were chosen
90
by participants to rate their motivation, N moderate = 4 (N ECI = 2; N SI = 2); N slightly high =
13 (N ECI = 10; N SI = 3); N high = 21 (N ECI = 15; N SI = 6); N very high = 6 (N ECI =
4; N SI = 2). Procedures such as rapport building and greeting, which were part of both
interview conditions, might have precluded lower motivation levels.
No effect of interview condition (ECI or SI) on participant’s perception of their own
motivation during the interview was found, U = 196, p = .245, r = .18. However, participants’
perception of their own motivation during the interview was correlated to report accuracy,
measured in correct recall proportion, rs = .37, p = .026, 95% CI [.10, .68].
Since ‘moderate’ and ‘very high’ motivation levels were chosen by only a few participants
(N = 10), we merged the two lowest levels of motivation (‘moderate’ and ‘slightly high’
motivation) and the two highest levels of motivation (‘high’ and ‘very high’ motivation) to have
more participants in each group: ‘lower’ motivation (N = 17) and ‘higher motivation’ (N = 27).
Afterwards, we conducted a t-test for independent samples and found witnesses who perceived
themselves as more motivated during the interview had a higher correct recall proportion (M =
.88, SD = .05) than witnesses who reported having lower levels of motivation (M = .84, SD =
.07), t (42) = 2.35, p = .023, d = 0.73, 95% CI [−.08, −.01].
Discussion
This study examined how use of witnesses’ spontaneous metacognitive judgments of
‘uncertainty’, as well as their perception of their own motivation, could help to increase and/or
evaluate report accuracy. Our major findings were spontaneous ‘uncertainties’ were less accurate
than ‘certainties’ and thus their exclusion raised overall, ECI, and SI, accuracy values. Also,
witnesses who perceived themselves as more motivated during the interview had better recall
accuracy.
Since ECI research is mostly focused on how to increase the amount of produced
information (Milne & Bull, 1999), we focused on how to increase report accuracy. We found
participants were capable of spontaneously distinguish more reliable information (‘certainties’)
from less reliable information (‘uncertainties’). Our results are supported by previous findings
suggesting witnesses are able of using several metacognitive techniques to monitor their own
report (Allwood et al., 2005; Evans & Fisher, 2010; Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996; Roberts &
Higham, 2002; Sniezek & Buckley, 1991). However, to our knowledge, this was the first study to
reveal witnesses are able to spontaneously perform real-time memory monitoring while recalling
91
information in an interview setting. Furthermore, such results were stable across both interview
conditions (ECI or SI) which is consistent with previous findings suggesting metacognitive
techniques are effective in several different situations and contexts (Allwood et al., 2005; Lindsay
et al., 2013; Luna & Martín-Luengo, 2012). Such findings can have major implications for real-life
investigations.
Our study is also consistent with previous research (Aschermann et al., 1991; Dando &
Milne, 2010; Rivard et al., 2014) suggesting the ECI superiority effect over an SI (in terms of
Information quantity) does not affect other parameters such as the accuracy of such information
and, as our study now suggests, the proportion of produced uncertainties. When confronted with
consecutive retrieval attempts or instructions such as the ‘report everything’ mnemonic,
participants could provide ‘uncertain’ information they might otherwise withhold, therefore
explaining an increase in recall on the ECI condition. Our study does not support this because
even though ECI participants are providing more details, they are not reporting a higher
proportion of ‘uncertainties’. Such results are highly important for ECI usage, suggesting more
detailed reports, typically achieved when using the ECI, may well be the result of indeed using
diversified and effective recall strategies (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Paulo et al., 2013).
Witnesses could also be withholding ‘uncertain’ information at the beginning of the interview and
later choose to reveal it assuming, if the interviewer is asking for successive retrieval attempts,
he/she expects more information from the witness, regardless of its accuracy. However, our
study does not suggest this because pairwise comparisons revealed no differences between
interview phases regarding the number of produced uncertainties, proportion wise. Lastly, it is
important to state we found no correlation between proportion of produced ‘uncertainties’ for a
given report and accuracy for the remaining recall. Therefore, our study does not support
‘uncertainties’ are the result of inferior memory traces since witnesses who provide more
‘uncertainties’ do not seem to be providing more errors and confabulations in their remaining
recall. We believe ‘uncertainties’ are a result of metacognitive monitoring which is
homogeneously performed throughout the interview regardless of interview condition, interview
phase, or report length. Such monitoring is effectively performed, since only 65% of the produced
‘uncertainties’ were correct units of information, in comparison with ‘certainties’ that have a 90%
correct recall rate.
Our study purposely constrained motivation perception variability with procedures such
as greeting and establishing rapport (Vallano & Compo, 2015; Walsh & Bull, 2011) which
aim, among many other purposes, to preclude low levels of motivation (Read et al., 2009). Even
92
though we focused on the effect motivation perception could have on report accuracy when only
moderate to high levels of motivation were reported, more motivated witnesses were more
accurate. Such results are supported by previous research which suggests witness’ perceptions
toward the interviewer and the interview process might have an important role on witnesses’
report (Ballardin et al., 2013; Walsh & Bull, 2011). However, to our knowledge, this is the first
study to assess the relationship between witnesses’ perception of their own motivation and report
accuracy, suggesting promoting witnesses’ motivation, for instance, through rapport, might also
be another effective procedure to further increasing report accuracy .
One could argue accuracy is influencing witnesses’ motivation: participants who provide
a more accurate report consequently feel more motivated. However, as previously discussed,
Paulo et al. (2015) found witnesses were unable to successfully evaluate their accuracy for
different interview phases, as well as for the whole interview. Similarly to Granhag et al. (2004),
these authors found no association between participants’ frequency judgments and participants
‘real’ error rate. Therefore, if witnesses are unable to accurately evaluate accuracy for large
portions of their statement, and for their overall statement, it is very unlikely that our
participants who achieved higher accuracy rates were able to perceive so, and consequently
felt more motivated. It is our believe highly motivated witnesses may be applying more effort to
successfully provide an accurate report, for instance, by effectively monitoring such information,
which, as we previously established, has a major role on increasing report accuracy. However,
this requires further testing as discussed in the following section.
Limitations and future directions
Given the size of our sample, two motivation levels had only a few participants (see
‘Results’ section). This constrained our ability to further test if highly motivated participants are
applying more effort to monitor their report, consequently providing a more accurate report. In
the future, it would be interesting to develop a study with more participants to test if highly
motivated witnesses present more signs of memory monitoring (e.g. elicit more ‘uncertainties’)
than witnesses who report moderate/lower levels of motivation. Furthermore, only one measure
of motivation was used in this study. Given that witnesses’ motivation could have an effect on
report accuracy; it is important to further test this hypothesis with other motivation measures,
such as real-time motivation assessments during the interview, as well as by manipulating
participants’ motivation levels. Lastly, it would be very interesting to separate ‘certainties’ in two
new groups: (a) ‘regular recall’ – e.g. ‘he had a black shirt’ and (b) ‘full certainty’ – e.g. ‘I am
93
definitely sure he had a black shirt’. However, participants seldom spontaneously report a ‘full
certainty’. Therefore, a different research design which encourages participants to tell when they
are absolutely sure about a piece of information they have previously reported is necessary.
Conclusion
Our findings support differentiating spontaneous ‘certainties’ from ‘uncertainties’ and
promoting witnesses’ motivation are key points researchers and professionals should consider.
Taking note of witnesses’ motivation and ability to use spontaneous verbal expressions of
uncertainty to naturally monitor their own report might be an effective and time-saving procedure
to increase or evaluate report accuracy.
Acknowledgements
We express our gratitude to Dr Becky Milne (of the University of Portsmouth) for her help
and support. We express our gratitude to the Portuguese governmental institution ‘Fundação para
a Ciência e a Tecnologia’ (grant number: SFRH/BD/84817/2012) for funding this study.
References
Akehurst, L., Milne, R., & Köhnken, G. (2003). The effects of children’s age and delay on recall in
a cognitive or structured interview. Psychology, Crime & Law, 9, 97–107. doi:10.1080/
1068316021000057686
Allwood, C., Ask, K., & Granhag, P. (2005). The cognitive interview: Effects on the realism in
witnesses’ confidence in their free recall. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11, 183–198. doi:
10.1080/ 10683160512331329943
Aschermann, E., Mantwill, M., & Köhnken, G. (1991). An independent replication of the
effectiveness of the cognitive interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5, 489–495.
doi:10.1002/acp. 2350050604
Ballardin, M., Stein, L., & Milne, R. (2013). Além das técnicas de entrevista: características
individuais em entrevista investigativa com testemunhas. [Beyond the interview
techniques: individual characteristics in investigative interviews with witnesses]. Revista
Brasileira de Segurança Pública, 7, 6–16.
94
Bower, G. (1967). A multicomponent theory of the memory trace. In K. W. Spence & J. T. Spence
(Eds.),The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 1, pp. 229–325). New York, NY:
Academic Press.
Brewer, N., Weber, N., Wootton, D., & Lindsay, S. (2012). Identifying the bad guy in a lineup
using confidence judgments under deadline pressure. Psychological Science, 23, 1208–
1214. doi:10. 1177/0956797612441217
Campos, L., & Alonso-Quecuty, M. L. (1999). The cognitive interview: Much more than simply
“try again”. Psychology, Crime & Law, 5, 47–59. doi:10.1080/10683169908414993
Dando, C., & Milne, R. (2010). The cognitive interview. In R. Kocsis (Ed.), Applied criminal
psychology: A guide to forensic behavioral sciences (pp. 147–169). Sydney, NSW:
Charles C. Thomas. doi:10.1002/ jip.124
Evans, J. R., & Fisher, R. P. (2010). Eyewitness memory: Balancing the accuracy, precision and
quantity of information through metacognitive monitoring and control. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 25, 501–508. doi:10.1002/acp.1722
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A. G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using
G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods,
41, 1149–1160.
Field, A. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics (4th ed.). London: Sage.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative
interviewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (2010). The cognitive interview method of conducting police
interviews: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence.
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 321–328.
doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2010.09.004
Flin, R., Boon, J., Knox, A., & Bull, R. (1992). The effect of a five month-delay on children’s and
adult’s eyewitness memory. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 323–336.
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., Firstenberg, I., Hutton, L., Sullivan, S. J., Avetissian, I. V., &
Prosk, A. L. (1984). Enhancement of eyewitness memory: An empirical evaluation of the
cognitive interview. Journal of Police and Science Administration, 12, 74–80.
Gigerenzer, G. Hoffrage, U., & Kleinbölting, H. (1991). Probabilistic mental models: A
Brunswikian theory of confidence. Psychological Review, 98, 506–528. Retrieved from
http://dx.doi.org/10. 1037/0033-295X.98.4.506
95
Granhag, P. A., Jonsson, A., & Allwood, C. M. (2004). The cognitive interview and its effect on
witnesses’ confidence. Psychology, Crime & Law, 10, 37–52.
doi:10.1080/1068316021000030577
Higham, P. A., Luna, K., & Bloomfield, J. (2010). Trace-strength and source-monitoring
accounts of accuracy and metacognitive resolution in the misinformation paradigm.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 324–335. doi:10.1002/acp.1694
Higham, P. A., & Memon, A. (1999). A review of the cognitive interview. Psychology, Crime &
Law, 5, 177–196. doi:10.1080/10683169908415000
Köhnken, G., Milne, R., Memon, A., & Bull, R. (1999). The cognitive interview: A meta-
analysis. Psychology, Crime & Law, 5, 3–27. doi:10.1080/10683169908414991
Koriat, A., & Goldsmith, M. (1996). Monitoring and control processes in the strategic regulation
of memory accuracy. Psychological Review, 103, 490–517.
Liberman, V. (2004). Local and global judgements of confidence. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 30, 729–732. Retrieved from
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278- 7393.30.3.729
Lindsay, R., Kalmet, N., Leung, J., Bertrand, M., Sauer, J., & Sauerland, M. (2013). Confidence
and accuracy of lineups selections and rejections: Postdicting rejection accuracy with
confidence. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2, 179–184.
Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/j.jarmac.2013.06.002
Luna, K., & Martín-Luengo, B. (2012). Confidence-accuracy calibration with general knowledge
and eyewitness memory cued recall questions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 289–
295. doi:10. 1002/acp.1822
Memon, A., Holley, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Köhnken, G. (1997). Isolating the effects of the
cognitive interview techniques. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 179–197.
doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1997. tb02629.x
Memon, A., Meissner, C. A., & Fraser, G. (2010). The cognitive interview: A meta-analytic review
and study space analysis of the past 25 years. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16,
340–372. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020518
Metcalfe, J., & Shimamura, A. P. (1996). Metacognition: Knowing about knowing. Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press.
Milne, R. & Bull, R. (1999). Investigative interviewing: Psychology and practice. Chichester, WS:
Wiley. doi:10.1002/cbm.444
96
Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2003). Does the cognitive interview help children to resist the effects of
suggestive questioning? Legal and Criminological Psychology, 8, 21–38.
doi:10.1348/135532503762871219
O’Hagan, A., Buck, C. E., Daneshkhah, A., Eiser, J. R., Garthwaite, P. H., Jenkinson, D. J.,
Oakley, J.E., & Rakow, T. (2006). Uncertain judgements: Eliciting experts’ probabilities.
Chichester, WS: Wiley. doi:10.1002/0470033312
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The enhanced cognitive interview: Towards a
better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 15 (3), 190–199. Retrieved from
http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., Saraiva, M., & Bull, R. (2015). The enhanced cognitive
interview: Testing appropriateness perception, memory capacity and error estimate
relation with report quality. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29, 536–543.
doi:10.1002/acp.3132
Prescott, K., Milne, R., & Clark, J. (2011). How effective is the enhanced cognitive interview when
aiding recall retrieval of older adults including memory for conversation? Journal of
Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8, 257–270. doi:10.1002/jip.142
Read, J. M., Powell, M. B., Kebbell, M. R., & Milne, R. (2009). Investigative interviewing of
suspected sex offenders: a review of what constitutes best practice. International Journal
of Police Science & Management, 11, 442–459. doi:10.1350/ijps.2009.00.0.143
Riccó, A. (Director), & Riccó, R. (Director). (2004). O Assalto [The robbery] [Television series
episode]. In V. Castelo (Producer), Inspector Max. Lisbon: Produções Fictícias.
Rivard, J. R., Fisher, R. P., Robertson, B., & Mueller, D. H. (2014). Testing the cognitive interview
with professional interviewers: Enhancing recall of specific details of recurring events.
Applied Cognitive Psychology. Retrieved from
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.3026/full
Roberts, W. T., & Higham, P. A. (2002). Selecting accurate statements from the cognitive
interview using confidence ratings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 33–
43. doi:10.1037/ 1076-898X.8.1.33
Sniezek, J. A. & Buckley, T. (1991). Confidence depends on level of aggregation. Journal of
Behavioral Decision Making, 4, 263–272. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960040404
Stein, L. M., & Memon, A. (2006). Testing the efficacy of the cognitive interview in a developing
country. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 597–605. doi:10.1002/acp.1211
97
Tulving, E. (1991). Concepts of human memory. In L. R. Squire, N. M. Weinberger, G. Lynch, &
J. L. McGaugh (Eds.), Memory: Organization and locus of change (pp. 3–32). New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic
memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373.
Vallano, J. P., Compo, N. S. (2015). Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal
suspects: A theoretical and empirical review. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21, 85–
99. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/law0000035
Walsh, D., & Bull, R. (2011). Examining rapport in investigative interviews with suspects: Does its
building and maintenance work? Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 27, 73–84.
doi:10.1007/ s11896-011-9087-x
98
99
Article 4
Improving the enhanced cognitive interview with a new
interview strategy: Category clustering recall
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2016). Improving the enhanced cognitive interview with a new interview
strategy: Category clustering recall. Applied Cognitive Psychology. doi:10.1002/acp.32532016
100
101
Improving the enhanced cognitive interview with a new interview
strategy: Category clustering recall
ABSTRACT
Increasing recall is crucial for investigative interviews. The enhanced cognitive interview (ECI)
has been widely used for this purpose and found to be generally effective. We focused on further
increasing recall with a new interview strategy, category clustering recall (CCR). Participants
watched a mock robbery video and were interviewed 48 hours later with either the (i) ECI; (ii)
revised enhanced cognitive interview 1 (RECI1) — with CCR instead of the change order
mnemonic during the second recall; or (iii) revised enhanced cognitive interview 2 (RECI2) —
also with CCR but conjunctly used with ‘eye closure’ and additional open-ended follow up
questions. Participants interviewed with CCR (RECI1 and RECI2) produced more information
without compromising accuracy; thus, CCR was effective. Eye closure and additional open-
ended follow up questions did not further influence recall when using CCR. Major implications
for real-life investigations are discussed.
Keywords: enhanced cognitive interview; category clustering recall; change order; change perspective; eye
closure
Several authors (Dando & Milne, 2010; Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Paulo, Albuquerque, &
Bull, 2013) have acknowledged interviewing witnesses is a key procedure which can determine
the outcome of many police investigations. However, memory is not so accurate and what
witnesses report rarely corresponds fully with the witnessed event (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010).
Inadequate interviewing techniques commonly used during police investigations can augment this
problem often leading to poor testimonies (Flin, Boon, Knox, & Bull, 1992).
To address this issue, Geiselman et al. (1984) developed the cognitive interview. The
cognitive interview initially included four cognitive mnemonics: report everything, mental
reinstatement of context, change order, and change perspective. The report everything
mnemonic consists of instructing witnesses to report everything they can remember whether it
seems trivial or not. The mental reinstatement of context consists of asking witnesses to mentally
recreate the to-be-recalled event as well as their physiological, cognitive, and emotional states at
the time of the crime. The change order mnemonic consists of asking the witness now to recall
102
the event in a different chronological order, often reverse order. Lastly, the change perspective
mnemonic consists of asking the witness to recall the event from a different perspective. These
last two mnemonics (change order and change perspective) are frequently used to try to obtain
information that has not yet been recalled (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010).
A few years later, several social and communicative components crucial for conducting
good investigative interviews, such as rapport building, witness-compatible questioning,
transferring control of the interview to the witness, and mental imagery, were added to a new
version of the cognitive interview: the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI; Fisher & Geiselman,
1992). One can read Geiselman and Fisher (2014) or Paulo et al. (2013) for more information
about the ECI components as well as theory underlying such procedures (Tulving, 1991; Tulving
& Thomson, 1973). The ECI has been found to be very effective in many countries — for
example, USA, England, Australia, Brazil, and Portugal (Paulo, Albuquerque, Saraiva, & Bull,
2015b; Stein & Memon, 2006), with different witnesses — for example, children, adults, and
elderly (Verkampt & Ginet, 2009; Wright & Holliday, 2006), with a range of delays between the
witnessed event and the interview — for example, minutes to months (Larsson, Granhag, & Spjut,
2002), and a variety of events — for example, crime, traffic accident and phone call (Campos &
Alonso-Quecuty, 1999), both in laboratory and field studies (Colomb & Ginet, 2012; Colomb,
Ginet, Wright, Demarchi, & Sadler, 2013). These studies consistently showed this interview
technique can increase the number of correct units of information recalled by witnesses while
maintaining accuracy (Paulo et al., 2013). Such a finding is frequently referred to as the ECI
superiority effect (Aschermann, Mantwill, & Köhnken, 1991; Dando & Milne, 2010; Higham &
Memon, 1999; Köhnken, Milne, Memon, & Bull, 1999; Memon, Wark, Bull, & Köhnken, 1997;
Rivard, Fisher, Robertson, & Mueller, 2014).
The ECI has been widely used by police forces in several countries (e.g., in England,
Wales, and Australia) and found to be very effective. However, the ECI comprises multiple
mnemonics and instructions which can contribute differently to the ECI superiority effect
(Griffiths & Milne, 2010). Thus, several authors focused on assessing the efficacy of each
individual ECI component, concluding procedures such as establishing rapport (Vallano &
Compo, 2015; Kieckhaefer, Vallano, & Compo, 2014), asking for an initial free report (Lamb, La
Rooy, Malloy, & Katz, 2011), mental reinstatement of context (Milne & Bull, 1999), or ‘eye
closure’ (Vredeveldt, Tredoux, Kempen, & Nortje, 2015) are often important techniques for
obtaining more information. However, other ECI components may be less effective. Although the
change order and change perspective mnemonics might be useful for some specific purposes,
103
such as increasing cognitive load (Vrij et al., 2008), these are somewhat controversial
procedures, particularly the change perspective mnemonic (Boon & Noon, 1994; Brown, Lloyd-
Jones, & Robinson, 2008; Clarke & Milne, 2001; Clifford & George, 1996; Dando, Wilcock, &
Milne, 2008; Kebbell, Milne, & Wagstaff, 1999; Mello & Fisher, 1996). These two techniques
have been criticized mainly because (i) time constraints are common in police investigations and
these procedures take a considerable amount of time; (ii) these usually elicit only a limited
number of additional units of information (Bensi, Nori, Gambetti, & Giusberti, 2011); and (iii)
police officers sometimes consider these two procedures to be ineffective, time-consuming and
difficult to use (Dando et al., 2008; Kebbell et al., 1999). Therefore, replacing these two
procedures has frequently been discussed to develop even more effective interview protocols. For
instance, Davis, McMahon, and Greenwood (2005) compared the change order and change
perspective mnemonics with free recall attempts and found no advantage of both ECI
mnemonics in comparison with free recall tasks. Brunel, Py, and Launay (2013) found using the
open depth instruction (asking participants to focus their attention on the small details while
recalling the event once again) instead of the change perspective mnemonic allowed the
interviewer to obtain more information. Dando, Ormerod, Wilcock, and Milne (2011) found
recalling in reverse order might be less effective in comparison with another free recall regarding
the number and accuracy of recalled units of information. These authors argue reverse order
should be used with caution and only when free recall retrieval has been exhausted. On the
other hand, Bensi et al. (2011) found a second recall provided in reverse order was more effective
than a motivated second free retrieval attempt.
Therefore, it is arguable whether these two original cognitive interview mnemonics are
superior, similar, or inferior, to a second free recall attempt. Nonetheless, even though these
interview strategies (change order, change perspective or a further free recall) often only produce
low levels of additional information (Davis et al., 2005), this additional information can be very
valuable. It is often crucial for an interviewer, after a free recall attempt has been conducted and
fully exhausted and open-ended questions have been asked of the witness, to obtain more
information through the use of other recall strategies. However, there could be other methods to
conduct this second or third retrieval attempt which might be more effective. For instance, the
spreading- activation theory of semantic processing (Collins & Loftus, 1975) suggests memory is
often organized according to semantic similarity and the activation of semantically related
memories may occur when successively recalling information related to one specific semantic
category (Collins & Loftus, 1975). This is, if asked to recall objects, recalling ‘chair’ might prime
104
recall of similar objects (e.g., ‘desk’ and ‘counter’) which might in turn prime other related
objects, such as ‘paper’ and ‘pencil’. Furthermore, when asked to memorize random word lists,
participants often organize these words into semantic categories (e.g., animals, objects, or
plants) either during encoding and/or recall — semantic clustering (Manning & Kahana, 2012).
When participants use this recall strategy either spontaneously or when instructed to do so, it
typically allows participants to recall more words (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Robinson,
1966). However, to our knowledge, this strategy has never been adapted to and tested in an
interview setting. It seems likely that similarly to what was found for free recall with word lists,
organizing recall of a crime event in categories (e.g., object details, action details, and person
details) may increase the amount of information witnesses can report. Furthermore, memory can
be accessed by using several different cues and paths and other recall strategies such as
organizing recall of a crime in semantic categories might trigger further memories (Tulving, 1991).
Therefore, guiding witnesses to recall in category clusters might be an effective recall
strategy with several advantages over temporal clustering (e.g., reverse order): for example, (i)
recalling a crime event in category clusters might be more natural and compatible with the
witness’ mental organization of the event in comparison with recalling in a different, often
reverse, chronological order. Even though participants seldom spontaneously encode, organize,
or recall information in reverse order, they often naturally/spontaneously do this in semantic
categories (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning & Kahana, 2012; Robinson, 1966).
Therefore, using a recall strategy which is compatible with the witness’ mental organization of the
event might optimize recall by facilitating access to memorized information and preventing a
negative impact that an unnatural output of the information can have in disrupting recall (Fisher
& Geiselman, 2010); (ii) Recalling in reverse order is a very demanding task which might be
useful in some situations (e.g., increasing cognitive load) but may sometimes impair recall
because it demands high levels of cognitive resources (e.g., attention) which could otherwise be
devoted to recall new information (Vrij et al., 2008). Because category clustering is often
performed spontaneously, witnesses might be more familiarized with this task and use less
cognitive resources to perform it, focusing more on recall; (iii) As previously stated, memory
traces for a given event are often linked and recalling one memory might trigger other related
memories (Tulving, 1991). Therefore, according to the spreading-activation theory of semantic
processing (Collins & Loftus, 1975), it is possible successively recalling information (e.g., ‘paper’,
‘desk’, and ‘pencil’) related to one specific cluster (e.g., objects) gradually triggers other
memories (e.g., ‘counter’) which are closely related to that cluster and might otherwise not be
105
activated and recalled. Based on these premises, we focused on developing a new interview
strategy which could serve the purpose of obtaining more accurate information from the witness: the
category clustering recall (CCR) instruction.
Current study
In this study, we tested if replacing the change order mnemonic with a new interview
technique, CCR (see Method Section), during the second recall attempt (when the change order
is typically used) would assist participants to recall more information without compromising
report accuracy. This is, we assessed if using semantic clustering to guide retrieval instead of
temporal clustering would allow participants to recall more correct information.
Because appropriate questioning can help the witness to recall more accurate
information (Gudjonsson, 1992), we also tested whether this could further increase the number
of recalled units of information when appropriate open-ended witness-compatible follow up
questions are asked during CCR to address information which is being reported by the witness
(e.g., What else do you remember about the objects at the crime scene? What did the robber do
next?). Furthermore, because eye closure, which refers to asking participants to close their eyes
during a memory task, may sometimes enhance recall for event-related details (Mastroberardino
& Vredeveldt, 2014; Vredeveldt, Hitch, & Baddeley, 2011; Vredeveldt et al., 2015), we also
examined if CCR effectiveness would be enhanced when combined with additional witness-
compatible open-ended questions and eye closure. Thus, in this study, one of the groups of
participants performed their second recall attempt using the CCR technique in conjunction with
both these procedures (see Method Section).
Lastly, we tested if replacing the change perspective mnemonic with the change order
mnemonic at the third recall attempt (when change perspective is usually used) would have an
impact on recall. As discussed earlier, the change perspective mnemonic has been particularly
criticized (Boon & Noon, 1994; Kebbell et al., 1999) for, among other things, having somewhat
unclear instructions which are difficult to explain for instance to children (Stein, 2010). Therefore,
if participants are able to recall more details, or at least a similar number of details, during this
third recall attempt with the aid of the change order mnemonic instead of the change perspective
mnemonic, this suggests the use of a potentially controversial mnemonic (change perspective)
can be avoided.
Overall, our main goal was to assess if the number of units of information reported can
be increased during the ECI second recall attempt through the use of CCR instead of the change
106
order mnemonic. Furthermore, we tested if eye closure and appropriate open-ended follow-up
questions, when used in conjunction with the CCR strategy, would have a further positive impact
on recall. Lastly, we compared the change order and change perspective mnemonics
effectiveness at the ECI third recall task. Therefore, we established three main hypotheses: (i)
Participants interviewed with the CCR instead of the change order mnemonic will recall more
information (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning & Kahana, 2012; Robinson, 1966); (ii)
This increase in recall will be higher when eye closure and open-ended follow-up questions are
used conjunctly with CCR because, when used properly (e.g., without suggestive questioning),
these two procedures have been found to have a positive impact on the number of recalled event
related details; (iii) At the third recall attempt, the change order mnemonic can be as, or more,
effective than the change perspective mnemonic.
Method
Participants
A total of 66 Portuguese psychology students, 59 female and seven male, with an age
range from 17 to 48 years (M = 20, SD = 5) participated in this study for course credits. We have
used G*Power 3.1 (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) to conduct power analysis based on
the effect sizes reported in a recent ECI meta-analysis review (Memon, Meissner, & Fraser, 2010)
to ensure our sample size was adequate. Participants were randomly assigned to three interview
groups with 22 participants each. The ECI group had 18 female participants and four male
participants with an age range from 17 to 46 years (M = 21, SD = 6), the revised enhanced
cognitive interview 1 (RECI1) group had 22 female participants with an age range from 17 to 29
years (M = 19, SD = 2), and the RECI2 group had 19 female participants and three male
participants with an age range from 18 to 48 years (M = 21, SD = 7).
Design
A between participants’ experimental design was used with interview condition as
independent variable with three levels: (i) ECI; (ii) RECI1 — with CCR instead of the change order
mnemonic; and (iii) RECI2 — also with CCR instead of the change order mnemonic but
conjunctly used with eye closure and additional open-ended follow-up questions (M = 22, SD =
8) in comparison with participants interviewed with the RECI1 (M = 4, SD = 2) and the ECI (M =
7, SD = 5). In both RECIs (RECI1 and RECI2), the change perspective mnemonic was replaced
107
with the change order mnemonic at the third recall attempt. The amount of reported information
and accuracy were measured in information units and proportions, respectively.
Materials
Participants watched the recording on a Fujitsu L7ZA LCD computer screen. The video
recording was edited from the second episode of the 2004 Portuguese television drama
‘Inspector Max’ (Riccó & Riccó, 2004) and was 3 minutes and 11 seconds long. This non-violent
video recording shows a male-armed subject walking inside a bank and taking several hostages
to carry a robbery. He verbally and physically interacts with them, with the cashier and a police
officer who later approaches the robber. All interviews were video and audio recorded.
Procedure
Ethics committee approval was obtained. Having signed a consent form after reading
general information about the study, participants took part in two sessions. At the first session,
after being randomly assigned to one of the three interview conditions (ECI vs. RECI1 vs. RECI2),
they were shown the video recording. They were asked to pay as much attention as possible to
the video recording because they would be later interviewed about it. The second session took
place approximately 48 hours later and each participant was interviewed with the ECI, or the
RECI1, or the RECI2, according to interview group.
Interview conditions
The ECI interview protocol employed (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992) had previously been
translated and adapted for the Portuguese language. This interview protocol proved to be
effective with a Portuguese population (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2015a; Paulo et al., 2015b).
This is, the authors were able to replicate the ECI superiority effect (in comparison with a
Structured Interview) as well as many other common findings in the ECI literature such as the
decline in recall of new information at later interview stages (Paulo et al., 2015a; Paulo et al.,
2015a, 2015b).
All interview protocols included at least three of the four ECI cognitive mnemonics:
Report Everything, Context Reinstatement and Change Order, as well as all social and
communicative components described in Fisher and Geiselman (1992) such as rapport building,
transfer of control, appropriate questioning (e.g., witness-compatible questioning), and mental
108
imagery. Fisher and Geiselman (1992) guidelines for conducting the ECI were followed for all
interview conditions.
All interview protocols included the same number of retrieval attempts in seven main
phases: (i) preliminary phase; (ii) free report; (iii) open-ended questioning; (iv) second recall; (v)
third recall (for new information only); (vi) summary; and (vii) closure. All differences between
interview conditions were in Phase 4 and Phase 5 as described later. The remaining interview
phases were exactly alike in all interview conditions (Table 4.1).
Phase 1
Preliminary
Phase 2
Free Report
Phase 3
Open-ended
Questioning
Phase 4
Second Recall
Phase 5
Third Recall
Phase 6
Summary
ECI X X X Change
Order
Change
Perspective
X
RECI1 X X X CCR Change Order X
RECI2 X X X CCR
(with ‘Eye closure’
and follow up questions)
Change Order X
X – No differences between interview conditions
Table 4.1. Differences between interview conditions according to interview phase.
During Phase 1 (preliminary phase) procedures such as greeting, establishing rapport,
explaining the instructions and interview purpose to the witness, and asking not to guess were
followed for all interview protocols, including the transfer of control instruction: ‘(…) you are the
only one who saw the video and have the ability to report all the important information (…) you
can tell me what happened in the order you desire and pause whenever you want’; as well as the
report everything instruction:’(…) please tell me everything you remember with as much detail as
you can (…) even the details which might seem irrelevant to you are very important to me (…) tell
me everything that pops into your mind’.
During Phase 2 (free report), all participants were asked to recall what they could
remember about the video in any order and pace they desired. They were reminded to report
everything they could remember with as much detail as possible and mental reinstatement of
context was applied:
109
(…) Try to remember the day you have watched the video (…) now picture the
crime scene in your mind (…) as clear as possible (…) picture all the sounds (…)
all the objects (…) all the people (..) and now focus on what happened and tell me
everything you can remember.
During Phase 3 (open-ended questioning), three open-ended questions were asked to
each participant according to his/her free report (e.g., ‘Please describe the weapon’ — if a
participant previously reported seeing a weapon). Mental imagery instructions were used — for
example:
You told me you looked at the weapon when the robber entered the bank. Can
you please close your eyes …, think about everything you remember concerning
the weapon …, its color…, its shape …, and when you have a full picture of the
weapon in your mind describe everything you can remember about it.
During Phase 4 (second recall), participants were asked to report what they could
remember about the video once again:
(…) I know it may seem redundant, but it is actually highly important you report
one more time what happened on the video (…) report not only new information
you might recall, but also all the information you’ve already reported (…).
In all conditions participants were encouraged to give this second report and the
importance of such procedure was explained: ‘It is very important you focus as hard as you can
and tell me one more time what happened on the video’. In the ECI condition, participants were
asked to recall the video in reverse order: (…)
Please tell me everything that happened in reverse order (…) Focus on the last
episode you remember … then focus on the previous one … and so on (…). What is
the last episode you remember? (…) Good job! Tell me everything that happened
right before that (…) Ok, and before that? (…) Great! What happened before this
episode? (…) Did something happen before that? What? (…).
110
In both RECI groups (RECI1 and RECI2), participants were asked to recall the video with
the aid of CCR instead of the change order mnemonic (Table 4.1). This recall strategy consisted
on asking participants to recall one more time everything they could remember about the crime
episode but this time being asked to organize their recall/speech into information categories.
We asked participants to first recall everything they could remember about the objects at the
crime scene and immediately after the location of those objects. Then, we asked participants to
recall everything they could remember about the location of each person at the crime scene.
Following that, we asked them to focus and recall the actions that occurred during the crime.
Lastly, we asked participants to focus on what they might have heard during the video and first
recall everything they could remember about what people said during the crime, and then
everything they could remember about other sounds they might have heard:
Please tell me everything that happened but focus in one information category at a
time. For instance, I’m going to ask you to focus on the objects at the crime scene,
the actions which occurred during the crime, the sounds and voices you might
remember, among other aspects, one at a time (…). First, tell me everything you
remember about the objects at the crime scene and describe them one by one (…)
Good Job. Now focus on the position/s of those objects (…) Ok, now tell me about
the position, or positions, people occupied during the crime (…) Great, now focus
on the actions which occurred during the crime (…) Thank you, now focus on what
you remember hearing (…) first tell me about what people said (…) and lastly
focus on any other sounds you might have heard (…).
We have selected these information categories because (i) these are frequently
important topics for a police investigation, therefore commonly used in the coding process of
investigative interviews; (ii) these are very broad categories which are present in almost every
crime, therefore minimizing the interviewer’s impact on the participant’s report and replacing
the need to use specific questions which can have a negative impact on recall, for instance,
when information which has not been previously reported is inadvertently included in these
questions; (iii) ‘conversation’ and ‘sound’ categories focus on a different sensorial mode
(hearing instead of vision), which can be important for eliciting new information (Fisher &
Geiselman, 1992).
111
The two procedural differences between the RECI1 and RECI2 conditions were at this
phase (Table 4.1): (i) Although both interview conditions contained the CCR instead of the change
order mnemonic, in the RECI2 condition we asked participants to close their eyes when
performing this task. All participants complied with this task and subsequently reported they felt
comfortable doing so. The eye closure instruction was not given to the ECI group or the RECI1
group, where participants were free to use whatever strategy they found to be more useful (e.g.,
focus on a blank space of the room, look at various locations, and eye closure). In the ECI
condition, seven participants spontaneously closed their eyes and one participant focused on a
blank space of the room during this interview phase. In the RECI1 condition, two participants
spontaneously used eye closure and one participant focused on a blank space of the room; (ii)
Participants in the RECI2 group were asked additional open-ended follow up questions (M = 22, SD
= 8) in comparison with participants interviewed with the RECI1 (M = 4, SD = 2) and the ECI (M =
7, SD = 5). These were witness-compatible open-ended questions to address information which
was being reported during CCR, and try to obtain more details (e.g., ‘What did the robber do
next?’). For the other two groups (RECI1 and ECI) the interviewer only asked a few open-ended
witness-compatible questions (see number earlier) he found to be absolutely necessary to
conduct the interview. For instance, if a participant was describing the several crime moments
together during reverse order, the interviewer would ask her/ him to fully describe what
happened during each moment separately.
During Phase 5 (third recall), participants were asked to focus one more time on the
video and try to report any new detail they could remember if possible. In all interview conditions
the importance of such a procedure was explained, and participants were encouraged to do the
best they could. In the ECI condition, participants were asked to adopt a different internal
perspective to try to remember new details: ‘(…) please focus on the event as if it was a normal
event at the bank instead of a robbery, as you probably assumed before seeing the robber
entering the bank (…)’. In both RECI protocols (RECI1 and RECI2) participants were asked to use
the change order mnemonic (as described earlier for the ECI Phase 4) to try to remember new
details. Therefore, at this phase, the change perspective mnemonic was replaced with the
change order mnemonic for both RECI groups. RECI1 and RECI2 were exactly alike at this phase
(Table 4 .1).
During Phase 6 (summary), the interviewer summarized what he understood of the
witness’ account and asked her to correct him if he misheard or misinterpreted any part of the
statement. He also told her to interrupt him if she/he could remember any new detail while
112
hearing the summary. On the last phase (closure), appreciation for participants’ hard work and
cooperation was acknowledged, and neutral topics were again discussed.
Interviewer training
An expert in the ECI who had followed several qualified courses on investigative
interview techniques consisting of more than 50 hours of lectures, practice, role-playing
exercises, and feedback/ evaluation conducted all interviews. To assure interviewer
performance was adequate and consistent across interview conditions, interview protocols were
read verbatim whenever possible (e.g., open-ended questioning and summary phase need to be
adapted according to participants’ previous recall). Furthermore, an independent expert on
human memory and forensic psychology randomly checked 25.5% of the interviews to evaluate
the interviewer’s verbal and non-verbal behavior using a structured evaluation grid, which
included parameters such as the type of questioning used, level of established rapport,
instructions clarity, and interviewer’s posture/behavior, concluding these parameters were
adequate and consistent across interview conditions.
Coding
Recordings of each interview were coded using the template scoring technique from
Memon et al. (1997). A comprehensive list of details in the video recording was compiled and
units of information were categorized as referring to (i) person; (ii) action; (iii) object; (iv)
location; (v) conversation; and (vi) sound, resulting in 378 units of information. Recalled
information was classified as either correct, incorrect (e.g., saying the pistol was brown when it
was black) or confabulation (mentioning a detail or event which was not present or did not
happen). Also noted was the phase within the interview in which a unit of information was
recalled. If a unit of information (correct or not) was repeated during the same or a subsequent
phase, that information was scored only the first time it was mentioned (Prescott, Milne, &
Clark, 2011). Subjective statements or opinions were disregarded (e.g., ‘The robber was
gorgeous’).
Inter-rater reliability
To assess inter-rater reliability, 17 (25.5%) interviews were selected randomly and scored
independently by a researcher who was naive to the aims of the experiment and hypothesis but
familiar with the template method of scoring interviews and had access to the crime video.
113
Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated for correct information, incorrect
information and confabulations, and for the six information categories (person, action, etc.). High
inter-rater reliability was found for all measures in that the values of the ICC ranged between
.980 and 1.000 with an overall ICC of .995.
Results
Eight participants in the ECI condition, seven participants in the RECI1 condition and nine
participants in the RECI2 condition (total = 27 participants) had previously viewed the television
episode from which the to-be-recalled event was compiled. We found no differences between
these participants and participants who had not viewed the television episode in terms of the
number of recalled correct units of information during the full interview, t (63) = .381, p = .705, d
= .09, 95% CI [-14.76, 10.03], and report accuracy, t (68) = 1.08, p = .282, d = .27, 95%
CI [-15.69, 10.96]. Therefore, this factor was not considered during subsequent analyses.
We then conducted a multivariate ANOVA to see if interview condition had an effect on memorial
performance throughout the interview (all interview phases combined), operationalized in three
measures: (i) number of correct units of information recalled; (ii) number of errors committed; and
(iii) number of confabulations committed. This found a significant difference in recall
performance according to interview condition, F (6,122) = 4.41, p < .001, Wilks’ Λ= .68, ηp
2 =
.18. The univariate F tests found an effect of interview condition on the number of correct units
of information recalled, F (2, 65) = 8.92, p < .001, ηp
2 = .22 (Figure 4.1). There was no effect of
interview condition on the number of errors, F (2, 65) = 2.38, p = .101, ηp
2 = .06, nor
confabulations, F (2, 65) = .08, p = .925, ηp
2 = .01, committed throughout the interview.
114
Figure 4.1. Number of correct units of information, errors and confabulations reported in each interview condition
Planned contrasts for the number of correct units of information recalled during the full
interview revealed participants interviewed with the ECI recalled fewer correct details (M = 77.09,
SD = 24.96) than participants who were interviewed with the RECI1 (M = 104.55, SD = 19.30)
or the RECI2 (M = 93.82, SD = 20.51), t (63) = 3.89, p < .001. Planned contrasts also revealed
no difference between the RECI1 and RECI2 regarding the number of correct details elicited, t
(63) = 1.64, p = .107.
We then looked separately at Phase 4 (second recall attempt) and Phase 5 (third recall
attempt) because these were the only two phases which had procedural differences across
interview conditions. We conducted two independent one-way between subjects ANOVAs to see
if the number of correct units of information recalled in Phase 4 (second recall attempt) and in
Phase 5 (third recall attempt) varied across interviews.
Considering Phase 4 (second recall attempt), we found an effect of interview condition
on the number of correct units of information newly recalled during this interview phase, F (2,
65) = 69.45, p < .001, ηp
2 = .69. Planned contrasts revealed participants who recalled the event
in reverse order (ECI condition) recalled fewer new correct details during Phase 4 (M = 4.55, SD
= 3.79) than participants in the RECI1 condition (M = 20.73, SD = 5.49) or the RECI2 condition
(M = 23.09, SD = 7.24) who recalled the event using CCR, t (63) = 11.70, p < .001 (Table 4.2).
Planned contrasts found no difference between the RECI1 and RECI2 regarding the number of
correct details elicited at Phase 4 (Table 4.2), t (63) = 1.37, p = .163. Thus, using eye closure,
115
and asking additional open-ended follow-up questions seems not to have an impact on recall
while using CCR.
ECI RECI1 RECI2
Interview Phase M SD M SD M SD
Free Report 37.95 17.21 38.82 17.53 32.77 9.99
Questioning 29.45 11.31 41.77 12.10 33.72 11.83
Second recall 4.55 3.79 20.73 5.49 23.09 7.24
Third recall 3.32 2.32 1.95 1.68 2.14 3.50
Summary 2.59 2.74 1.27 1.58 1.05 1.13
Note: M, mean; SD, standard deviation; ECI, enhanced cognitive interview; RECI, revised enhanced cognitive interview.
Table 4.2. M and SD values for the number of correct units of information newly recalled in each interview phase,
according to interview condition
Regarding Phase 5 (third recall attempt), we found no interview condition effect on the
number of correct units of information newly recalled, F (2, 65) = 1.77, p = .178, ηp
2 = .05,
which suggests at this later phase of the interview using the change order mnemonic (RECI1 and
RECI2) instead of the change perspective mnemonic (ECI condition) does not influence the
number of new correct units of information participants are able to recall. As seen in Table 4.2,
the number of new correct units of information recalled at this phase was very low for all groups.
Lastly, although the aforementioned results suggest participants interviewed with the
RECI1 and RECI2 recalled more correct information and this might be explained by the use of
CCR instead of the change order mnemonic, it is important to see if report accuracy was not
compromised with this new recall strategy. This is, it is important to test if participants in the
RECI1 and RECI2 groups were not committing a higher proportion of errors (ratio between the
number of errors produced over all produced units of information) or confabulations (ratio
between the number of confabulated units of information over all produced units of information),
therefore compromising their report accuracy (correct recall proportion: ratio between the
number of correct units of information recalled over all the recalled units of information). For this
purpose, we conducted three two-way mixed-design 3 × 5 ANOVAs to see if interview condition
(ECI vs. RECI1 vs. RECI2) as well as interview phase (Phase 2 vs. Phase 3 vs. Phase 4 vs. Phase
116
5 vs. Phase 6) had an effect on: (i) correct recall proportion; (ii) error proportion; and (iii)
confabulation proportion. Phase 1 (preliminary phase) was not included in these analyses
because participants did not recall information at this phase. We found no main effect of
interview condition, F (2, 31) = 1.46, p = .248, ηp
2 = .09, and interview phase, F (2.402,
74.475) = 2.45, p = .083, ηp
2 = .07, on correct recall proportion (i.e. accuracy). There was also
no interaction effect of interview condition and interview phase on correct recall proportion, F
(4.805, 74.475) = .30, p = .904, ηp
2
= .02. We found no main effect of interview condition, F (2,
32) = 1.50, p = .239, ηp
2
= .09, interview phase, F (2.081, 66.608) = 1.86, p = .163, ηp
2 = .06,
as well as no interaction effect, F (4.163, 66.608) = .27, p = .900, ηp
2
= .02, for participants’
error proportion rate. Lastly, we found no main effect of interview condition, F (2, 33) = 1.67, p =
.203, ηp
2
= .09, interview phase, F (2.256, 74.461) = .72, p = .506, ηp
2
= .02, and no interaction
effect between these two variables on confabulation proportion, F (4.513, 74.461) = .88, p =
.489, ηp
2
= .05. Thus, participants interviewed with the CCR (RECI1 and RECI2) were able to
provide more information without compromising accuracy.
Discussion
This study examined whether the use of CCR could increase the quantity of information
reported during participants’ second recall attempt. Our major findings were participants who
used CCR (RECI1 and RECI2 groups) were able to recall a considerably higher number of
correct details without compromising accuracy in comparison with participants who used the
change order mnemonic. Furthermore, we tested if using eye closure as well as asking
participants additional open-ended follow-up questions would have an impact on recall. We
found both procedures, when used together, did not further influence the number and accuracy
of newly recalled units of information at the second recall attempt while using CCR. Lastly, we
found at the third recall attempt participants interviewed with the change perspective mnemonic
(ECI condition) recalled a similar (but low) number of correct units of information in comparison
with participants interviewed with the change order mnemonic (RECI1 and RECI2 conditions).
Because increasing the number of produced details is a major aim of investigative
interviews (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Milne & Bull, 1999), we focused on developing a new
recall strategy which could fit this purpose. We found participants who used CCR during their
second recall attempt (Phase 4) provided more new correct units of information than participants
117
who used the change order mnemonic. As we have outlined in the introduction, there are
relevant theoretical explanations for why CCR enhanced recall in comparison with the change
order mnemonic. Recalling a crime event in category clusters might be a more natural strategy
because people often spontaneously encode, organize, and/or recall information in semantic
clusters. Therefore, CCR may be more compatible with the witnesses’ mental organization of the
event (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning & Kahana, 2012; Robinson, 1966).
Furthermore, because participants may be used to encode and/ or recall information in
semantic clusters, they may be more acquainted with CCR, requiring less cognitive resources
(e.g., attention) to perform this task. Consequently, they can allocate more cognitive recourses
for trying to remember new details, that they might otherwise not have available, for instance,
while recalling the event in reverse order which is an unfamiliar and cognitively demanding task
(Vrij et al., 2008). Thus, CCR might also have prevented a negative impact that an unnatural
and demanding recall strategy can have in disrupting recall (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). Lastly,
as also mentioned in the introduction, memory traces for a given event overlap and activation of
a memory trace might trigger other memories (Tulving, 1991). It is possible, according to the
spreading-activation theory of semantic processing which states memory is often organized
according to semantic similarity (Collins & Loftus, 1975), successively focusing on, and
recalling, information related to one specific cluster (e.g., objects: ‘paper’, ‘desk’, and ‘pencil’)
gradually produced enough activation to trigger related memories/ information (e.g., ‘counter’)
which might otherwise not be activated and recalled.
Report accuracy was not compromised with CCR because participants interviewed with
CCR did not commit a higher proportion of errors and confabulations in comparison with
participants who were interviewed with the change order mnemonic, therefore maintaining a
high correct recall proportion. High accuracy was expected for all interview conditions because all
interview protocols contained adequate instructions (e.g., instruction not to guess; rapport
building; transfer of control, etc.) and adequate questioning (e.g., witness-compatible
questioning) to maximize report accuracy (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010). Furthermore, category
clustering has previously been found to enhance recall regarding information quantity (e.g., with
word lists) while not compromising recall accuracy (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning
& Kahana, 2012; Robinson, 1966). Because eye closure has been found to sometimes enhance
recall for event-related details (Mastroberardino & Vredeveldt, 2014; Vredeveldt et al., 2011;
Vredeveldt et al., 2015) and using adequate open-ended follow-up questions might also have a
positive impact on recall (Gudjonsson, 1992), we tested how the combined use of these two
118
procedures could influence recall when using CCR. However, we found participants who closed
their eyes and were subjected to additional open-ended follow-up questions during CCR (RECI1)
did not recall more information in comparison with participants who also used CCR but were not
subjected to these two procedures (RECI1). Our study suggests CCR superiority effect in terms
of the number of recalled units of information does not seem to be affected by these two
variables. It is quite possible even though eye closure combined with ‘questioning’ can
sometimes improve recall (Gudjonsson, 1992; Mastroberardino & Vredeveldt, 2014; Vredeveldt
et al., 2011; Vredeveldt et al., 2015), such effects are not strong enough to be significant when
tested only for the second recall attempt, where the number of recalled units of information is
somewhat small in comparison with the number of recalled details throughout the whole
interview. Furthermore, for the purpose of conducting adequate investigative interviews, the
interviewer allowed two participants to spontaneously use eye closure in the RECI1 condition
and always tried to reduce to a minimum all possible auditory and visual distractions in the
interview environment for all interview conditions, which research suggests may be as effective
as eye-closure (Mastroberardino & Vredeveldt, 2014; Vredeveldt et al., 2011).
Lastly, because the change perspective mnemonic has been particularly criticized (Boon
& Noon, 1994; Kebbell et al., 1999), we examined if this ECI component could be replaced with
the change order mnemonic. We found participants who used the change order mnemonic
(RECI1 and RECI2 conditions) instead of the change perspective mnemonic (ECI condition)
during their third recall attempt (Phase 5) recalled a very similar number of new details in this
phase with similar accuracy values. Recall of new information at this later stage of the interview
is usually quite small (Davis et al., 2005) and, regardless of the procedure used, it is possible
participants have somewhat ‘exhausted’ their memory capacity.
In sum, CCR could be a very effective recall strategy which might trigger additional
memories (Tulving, 1991), allowing the witness to retrieve additional information with the use of
very broad semantic categories which are present in almost every crime (e.g., objects, actions,
and locations), thus enhancing witnesses’ recall. This procedure is effective without the use of
eye closure and additional questioning, as sometimes used during the questioning phase, which
can be a very demanding procedure particularly for less experienced interviewers who can easily
inadvertently include less appropriate questions (e.g., an excessive number of close-ended
questions or even the inclusion of suggestive questions) which can have a negative impact on
recall (Clarke & Milne, 2001; Westera, Kebbell, & Milne, 2011).
119
Limitations and future research
As with the majority of laboratory mock witness research, the present study contained
methodological limitations such as the use of a mock crime video and mock witnesses.
Therefore, field research to evaluate CCR effectiveness during real police investigations as well
as how to use it in a dynamic and flexible manner is necessary. Future studies to evaluate CCR
effectiveness in comparison with other interview strategies (e.g., witness-compatible
questioning), as well as further studies which control the effect of eye closure and/or additional
questioning separately, are also important.
Conclusion and practical implications
The change order and change perspective mnemonics have been somewhat criticized
not only in terms of efficacy (Bensi et al., 2011) but also in terms of usage (Dando et al., 2008;
Kebbell et al., 1999) and might not be more effective than an additional free recall task (Dando
et al., 2011; Davis et al., 2005). Considering the impressive number of details participants
interviewed with the CCR strategy were able to report at the second recall attempt, we conclude
this might be a very important technique for obtaining better testimony. Even though CCR might
already be partially used in practice during witness-compatible questioning (Can you describe
the location of the perpetrator and witnesses?), this is likely to occur in many different ways
which might have different efficacy. To our knowledge, this is the first study to test a specific
and well controlled protocol to apply CCR during a second recall attempt, which found recalling
a crime event in broad category clusters is effective. Therefore, professionals and researchers
have now available a new specific tool to obtain more correct information from the witness,
which can be a decisive factor in the field (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). Lastly, our results show
using the change order mnemonic during the third recall attempt instead of the change
perspective mnemonic might be a viable alternative because, even though both procedures
seem to produce similar and low amounts of recall, the change order mnemonic might be easier
to apply and explain to the witness (Boon & Noon, 1994; Kebbell et al., 1999). As previous
research suggests (Bensi et al., 2011), our study also supports a possible alternative for time
critical situations might be to exclude both the change order and the change perspective
mnemonics from the ECI protocol because these procedures seem to be unable to elicit a
considerable number of new details which might justify using these in time-demanding
situations.
120
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
under Grant number SFRH/BD/ 84817/2012. This study was conducted at the Psychology
Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and also supported by the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science,
Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through
COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653).
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
References
Aschermann, E., Mantwill, M., & Köhnken, G. (1991). An independent replication of the
effectiveness of the cognitive interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5, 489–495.
doi:10.1002/acp.2350050604.
Bensi, L., Nori, R., Gambetti, E., & Giusberti, F. (2011). The enhanced cognitive interview: A study
on the efficacy of shortened variants and single techniques. European Journal of
Cognitive Psychology, 23, 311–321. doi:10.1080/20445911.2011.497485.
Boon, J., & Noon, E. (1994). Changing perspectives in cognitive interviewing. Psychology Crime
and Law, 1, 59–69. doi:10.1080/ 10683169408411936.
Brown, C., Lloyd-Jones, T., & Robinson, M. (2008). Eliciting person descriptions from
eyewitnesses: A survey of police perceptions of eyewitness performance and reported
use of interview techniques. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20, 529–560.
doi:10.1080/ 09541440701728474.
Brunel, M., Py, J., & Launay, C. (2013). Cost and benefit of a new instruction for the cognitive
interview: the open depth instruction. Psychology, Crime & Law, 19, 845–863.
doi:10.1080/1068316X.2012.684058.
Campos, L., & Alonso-Quecuty, M. L. (1999). The cognitive interview: Much more than simply
“try again”. Psychology, Crime & Law, 5, 47–59. doi:10.1080/10683169908414993.
121
Colomb, C., & Ginet, M. (2012). The cognitive interview for use with adults: An empirical test
of an alternative mnemonic and of a partial protocol. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26,
35–47. doi:10.1002/acp.1792.
Colomb, C., Ginet, M., Wright, D., Demarchi, S., & Sadler, C. (2013). Back to the real: Efficacy
and perception of a modified cognitive interview in the field. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 27, 574–583. doi:10.1002/acp.2942.
Clarke, C., & Milne, R. (2001). National Evaluation of the PEACE Investigative Interviewing Course
(Publication No. PRAS/149). London: Home Office.
Clifford, B. R., & George, R. (1996). A field evaluation of training in three methods of
witness/victim investigative interviewing. Psychology Crime and Law, 2, 231–248.
doi:10.1080/10683169608409780.
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing.
Psychological Review, 82, 407–428. doi:10.1016/ B978-1-4832-1446-7.50015-7.
Dalrymple-Alford, E. C., & Aamiry, A. (1969). Language and category clustering in bilingual free
recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 8, 762–768. doi:10.1016/S0022-
5371(69)80041-1.
Dando, C., & Milne, R. (2010). The cognitive interview. In R. Kocsis (Ed.), Applied criminal
psychology: A guide to forensic behavioral sciences (147–169). Sydney, NSW: Charles
C. Thomas. doi:10.1002/jip.124.
Dando, C. J., Ormerod, T. C., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2011). When help becomes hindrance:
Unexpected errors of omission and commission in eyewitness memory resulting from
change temporal order at retrieval? Cognition, 121, 416–421.
doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.015.
Dando, C. J., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2008). The cognitive interview: Inexperienced police
officers’ perceptions of their witness interviewing behaviour. Legal and Criminological
Psychology, 13, 59–70. doi:10.1348/ 135532506X162498.
Davis, M. R., McMahon, M., & Greenwood, K. M. (2005). The efficacy of mnemonic
components of the cognitive interview: Towards a shortened variant for time-critical
investigations. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 75–93. doi:10.1002/acp.1048.
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A. G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using
G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research
Methods, 41, 1149–1160.
122
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-Enhancing Techniques for Investigative
Interviewing: The Cognitive Interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (2010). The Cognitive Interview method of conducting police
interviews: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence.
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 321–328.
doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2010.09.004.
Flin, R., Boon, J., Knox, A., & Bull, R. (1992). The effect of a five month delay on children’s and
adult’s eyewitness memory. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 323–336.
Geiselman, R. E., & Fisher, R. P. (2014). Interviewing witnesses and victims. In M. St-Yves (Ed.),
Investigative Interviewing: Handbook of Best Practices. Toronto: Toronto, ON: Thomson
Reuters Publishers.
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., Firstenberg, I., Hutton, L., Sullivan, S. J., Avetissian, I. V., &
Prosk, A. L. (1984). Enhancement of eyewitness memory: An empirical evaluation of
the cognitive interview. Journal of Police and Science Administration, 12, 74–80.
Griffihs, A., & Milne, R. (2010). The application of cognitive interview techniques as part of an
investigation. In C. A. Ireland, & J. M. Fisher (Eds.), Consultancy and advising in
forensic practice: Empirical and practical guidelines (edn, pp. 71 – 90). Chichester, UK:
BPS Blackwell.
Gudjonsson, G. (1992).The Psychology of Interrogations, Confessions and Testimony.
Chichester: Wiley.
Higham, P. A., & Memon, A. (1999). A review of the cognitive interview. Psychology, Crime & Law,
5, 177–196. doi:10.1080/10683169908415000.
Kebbell, M. R., Milne, R., & Wagstaff, G. F. (1999). The cognitive interview: A survey of its
forensic effectiveness. Psychology Crime and Law, 5, 101–115.
doi:10.1080/10683169908414996.
Kieckhaefer, J. M., Vallano, J. P., & Compo, N. S. (2014). Examining the positive effects of
rapport building: When and why does rapport building benefit adult eyewitness memory?
Memory, 22, 1010–1023. doi:10.1080/09658211.2013.864313.
Köhnken, G., Milne, R., Memon, A., & Bull, R. (1999). The cognitive interview: A meta-analysis.
Psychology, Crime & Law, 5, 3–27. doi:10.1080/10683169908414991.
Lamb, M. E., La Rooy, D. J., Malloy, L. C., & Katz, C. (2011). Children’s Testimony: A Handbook
of Psychological Research and Forensic Practice (2nd ed.). SXW, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
doi:10.1002/9781119998495.
123
Larsson, A. S., Granhag, P. A., & Spjut, E. (2002). Children’s recall and the cognitive interview:
Do the positive effects hold over time? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 203–214.
doi:10.1002/acp.863.
Manning, J. R., & Kahana, M. J. (2012). Interpreting semantic clustering effects in free recall.
Memory, 20, 511–517. doi:10.1080/ 09658211.2012.683010.
Mastroberardino, S., & Vredeveldt, A. (2014). Eye-closure increases children’s memory
accuracy for visual material. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 241.
doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00241.
Mello, E. W., & Fisher, R. P. (1996). Enhancing older adult eyewitness memory with the
cognitive interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 403–417.
doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199610)10:5<403::AID-ACP395>3.0.CO;2-X.
Memon, A., Meissner, C. A., & Fraser, G. (2010). The cognitive interview: A meta-analytic review
and study space analysis of the past 25 years. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16,
340–372. doi:10.1037/a0020518.
Memon, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Köhnken, G. (1997). Isolating the effects of the cognitive
interview techniques. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 179–197. doi:10.1111/j.2044-
8295.1997.tb02629.x.
Milne, R. & Bull, R. (1999). Investigative Interviewing: Psychology and Practice. Chichester, WS:
Wiley. doi:10.1002/cbm.444.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The enhanced cognitive interview: Towards a
better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 15, 190–199. doi:10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2015a). The enhanced cognitive interview:
expressions of uncertainty, motivation and its relation with report accuracy. Psychology,
Crime & Law, 22, 366–381. doi:10.1080/ 1068316X.2015.1109089.
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., Saraiva, M., & Bull, R. (2015b). The enhanced cognitive
interview: Testing appropriateness perception, memory capacity and error estimate
relation with report quality. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29, 536–543.
doi:10.1002/acp.3132.
Prescott, K., Milne, R., & Clark, J. (2011). How effective is the enhanced cognitive interview when
aiding recall recall of older adults including memory for conversation? Journal of
Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8, 257–270. doi:10.1002/jip.142.
124
Riccó, A. (Director), & Riccó, R. (Director). (2004). O Assalto [The robbery] [Television series
episode]. In V. Castelo (Producer), Inspector Max. Lisbon: Produções Fictícias.
Rivard, J. R., Fisher, R. P., Robertson, B., & Mueller, D. H. (2014). Testing the cognitive interview
with professional interviewers: Enhancing recall of specific details of recurring events.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28, 917–925. doi:10.1002/acp.3026.
Robinson, J. A. (1966). Category clustering in free recall. The Journal of Psychology:
Interdisciplinary and Applied, 62, 279–286. doi:10.1080/ 00223980.1966.10543793.
Stein, L. M. (2010). Falsas memórias: Fundamentos científicos e as suas aplicações clínicas e
jurídicas. Porto Alegre, RS: Artmed.
Stein, L. M., & Memon, A. (2006). Testing the efficacy of the cognitive interview in a developing
country. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 597–605. doi:10.1002/acp.1211.
Tulving, E. (1991). Concepts of human memory. In L. R. Squire, N. M. Weinberger, G. Lynch,
& J. L. McGaugh (Eds.), Memory: Organization and Locus of Change (edn, pp. 3 – 32).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. (1973). Encoding specificity and recall processes in episodic
memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373.
Vallano, J. P., & Compo, N. S. (2015). Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal
suspects: A theoretical and empirical review. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21,
85–99. doi:10.1037/ law0000035.
Verkampt, F., & Ginet, M. (2009). Variations of the cognitive interview: Which one is the most
effective in enhancing children’s testimonies? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1279–
1296. doi:10.1002/acp.1631.
Vredeveldt, A., Hitch, G. J., & Baddeley, A. D. (2011). Eyeclosure helps memory by reducing
cognitive load and enhancing visualisation. Memory & Cognition, 39, 1253–1263.
doi:10.3758/s13421-011-0098-8.
Vredeveldt, A., Tredoux, C. G., Kempen, K., & Nortje, A. (2015). Eye remember what happened:
Eye-closure improves recall of events but not face recognition. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 29, 169–180. doi:10.1002/acp.3092.
Vrij, A., Mann, S. A., Fisher, R. P., Leal, S., Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2008). Increasing cognitive
load to facilitate lie detection: The benefit of recalling an event in reverse order. Law and
Human Behavior, 32, 253–265. doi:10.1007/s10979-007-9103-y.
125
Westera, N. J., Kebbell, M. B., & Milne, B. (2011). Interviewing witnesses: Do investigative and
evidential requirements concur. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 13, 103–113.
doi:10.1108/ 14636641111134341.
Wright, A., & Holliday, R. (2006). Enhancing the recall of young, young–old and old–old adults
with cognitive interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 19–43.
doi:10.1002/acp.1260.
126
127
Article 5
Enhancing the cognitive interview with an alternative
procedure to witness-compatible questioning: Category
clustering recall
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2016). Enhancing the cognitive interview with an alternative procedure
to witness-compatible questioning: Category clustering recall. Manuscript submitted for publication.
128
129
Enhancing the cognitive interview with an alternative procedure to
witness-compatible questioning: Category clustering recall
ABSTRACT
Purpose. The Cognitive Interview (CI) is one of the most widely studied and used methods to
interview witnesses. However, developing new component techniques to be added to the CI for
further increasing correct recall is still crucial. We focused on how a new and simpler interview
strategy, Category Clustering Recall (CCR), could increase recall in comparison with witness-
compatible questioning and tested if a Revised Cognitive Interview (RCI) with CCR instead of witness-
compatible questioning and without the change order and change perspective mnemonics would be
effective for this purpose.
Methods. Participants watched a mock robbery video and were interviewed 48 hours later with
either the Cognitive Interview or a Revised Cognitive Interview. Recalled information was classified as
either correct, incorrect or confabulation.
Results. Although exclusion of the change order and change perspective mnemonics in the RCI
group caused a slight decrease in the amount of recalled information during the last interview
phases, participants interviewed with the RCI generally produced more correct information than
participants interviewed with the CI, with a lower number of confabulations and a similar number of
errors. Further analyses revealed Category Clustering Recall was largely responsible for this increase
in correct recall.
Conclusions. Category Clustering Recall is a very promising interview technique which allowed the
interviewer to obtain more detailed information without using additional questions and may have, in
some situations, several practical advantages over a questioning phase (e.g., easier to employ).
Major implications for real-life investigations are discussed.
Keywords: cognitive interview; category clustering recall; witness-compatible questioning; change
order; change perspective
Interviewing witnesses is a crucial procedure which can determine police investigations’
outcome (Fisher, 2010; Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2013). However, what witnesses report
seldom corresponds fully with the witnessed event because memory is not so accurate and
witnesses frequently omit information and commit errors (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010).
Inadequate interviewing techniques, sometimes used during police investigations, can augment
this problem and lead to poor testimonies (Milne & Bull, 1999). To provide police officers with
adequate interviewing techniques, Fisher and Geiselman (1992) developed the enhanced
cognitive interview which is now commonly referred to as the cognitive interview (CI). The original
130
CI initially included four cognitive mnemonics or interview techniques that aim to enhance recall:
report everything, mental reinstatement of context, change order, and change perspective. The CI
also comprises several social and communicative components which are crucial for conducting
appropriate investigative interviews, such as rapport building, witness-compatible questioning,
transferring control of the interview to the witness, and mental imagery (Fisher & Geiselman,
1992). One can read Geiselman and Fisher (2014) or Paulo et al. (2013) for more information
about the CI as well as the theories underlying this interview protocol and procedures (Tulving,
1991; Tulving & Thomson, 1973).
Several studies have demonstrated this interview technique can increase the number of
correct units of information recalled by witnesses while maintaining high accuracy rates (Paulo et
al., 2013). Such a finding is frequently referred to as the CI superiority effect. This has been
replicated in many countries, such as the USA, England, Australia, Brazil, and Portugal (Paulo,
Albuquerque, Saraiva, & Bull, 2015b; Stein & Memon, 2006), with different witnesses — for
example, children, adults, and elderly (Goodman & Melinder, 2007; Verkampt & Ginet, 2009;
Wright & Holliday, 2006), with different delays between the witnessed event and the interview —,
minutes to months (Larsson, Granhag, & Spjut, 2002), and different events — such as a crime, a
traffic accident, or a phone call (Campos & Alonso-Quecuty, 1999), both in laboratory and field
studies (Colomb & Ginet, 2012; Colomb, Ginet, Wright, Demarchi, & Sadler, 2013).
The CI has been widely trained and used by police forces in many countries such as
England, Wales and Australia. The CI comprises multiple mnemonics and instructions which can
contribute differently to CI superiority effect (Griffiths & Milne, 2010). Even though procedures
such as establishing rapport (Kieckhaefer, Vallano, & Compo, 2014; Nash, Nash, Morris, &
Smith, 2015; Vallano & Compo, 2015), asking for an initial free report (Lamb, La Rooy, Malloy, &
Katz, 2011) or mental reinstatement of context (Milne & Bull, 1999) have been found to be
important techniques for obtaining more information, other CI components may be less effective.
Change order and change perspective mnemonics which can be useful for some specific
purposes such as increasing cognitive load (Vrij, Fisher, & Blank, 2015) are somewhat
controversial procedures for enhancing recall, particularly the change perspective mnemonic
(Boon & Noon, 1994; Brown, Lloyd-Jones, & Robinson, 2008; Clarke & Milne, 2001; Clifford &
George, 1996; Dando, Wilcock, & Milne, 2008; Kebbell, Milne, & Wagstaff, 1999; Mello & Fisher,
1996). These two techniques have been criticized mainly for three reasons: (i) these procedures
take considerable interviewing time which is often scarce in police investigations; (ii) these
procedures usually elicit very limited additional information (Bensi, Nori, Gambetti, & Giusberti,
131
2011); and (iii) police officers often consider these two procedures to be ineffective, time-
consuming and difficult to use (Dando et al., 2008; Kebbell et al., 1999). Therefore, replacing or
removing change order and change perspective mnemonics from the interview has been
discussed to develop shorter and more efficient interview protocols (Colomb & Ginet, 2012;
Dando, Wilcock, & Milne, 2009).
For instance, Davis, McMahon, and Greenwood (2005) found a CI short version without
additional recall attempts might considerably reduce interview time with only a small information
loss (13%). Dando, Wilcock, Behnkle, and Milne (2011) found participants interviewed without the
change order and change perspective mnemonics were able to recall as much information as
participants interviewed with a full CI protocol, with higher accuracy. The same authors found
recalling in reverse order might be less effective than another free recall (Dando et al., 2011).
Therefore, whether these two original cognitive interview mnemonics, or other additional recall
attempts, are worth using is arguable since these often only produce very limited additional
information (Davis et al., 2005).
Nonetheless, it can be crucial for an interviewer to obtain more information. Witness
compatible-questioning which involves asking mainly open-ended questions compatible with the
witness’ previous recall and retrieval pattern, might be useful for this purpose (Fisher, 2010).
However, matching questions to witnesses’ free recall may require a lot of cognitive effort and
training on the part of the interviewer. In the traditional type of witness compatible questioning
the interviewer has to actively listen to the witness while possibly taking notes to help him/ her
plan the subsequent questions and interview procedures (Paulo et al., 2013). Therefore, even
though witness-compatible questioning can be very valuable in some situations, according to
Fisher (2010) this is probably the most difficult skill of the CI to employ. Therefore, using instead
another technique to obtain more information could be very valuable. Since lack of training on
witness interviewing is frequently stated by some police officers as a major problem (Dando et
al., 2008; Wright & Holliday, 2005), a simpler technique can be particularly useful when less
experienced police officers consider they are not fully prepared to implement witness-compatible
questioning.
For this purpose, Paulo, Albuquerque and Bull (2016) suggested asking witnesses for a
second retrieval attempt with Category Clustering Recall (CCR). This recall strategy consists of
asking witnesses to recall one more time everything they can remember about the crime episode
but, this time, witnesses are asked to organize their recall/speech into broad information
categories which are present in almost every crime (i.e., person details, object details, location
132
details, action details, conversation details and sound details), instead of temporal clusters as
used with the change order mnemonic. Paulo et al. (2016) found participants who used CCR
were able to recall substantially more information without compromising accuracy in comparison
with participants who used the change order mnemonic. Furthermore, they believe this interview
strategy may have several advantages: (i) Recalling a crime event in category clusters might be
more natural and compatible with the witness’ mental organization of the event because people
often naturally/spontaneously encode, organize or recall information in semantic categories
(Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning & Kahana, 2012; Robinson, 1966). (ii) Since
category clustering is often performed spontaneously, witnesses might be more familiarized with
this technique and use less cognitive resources to perform it, focusing more on recall; (iii)
According to the spreading-activation theory of semantic processing (Collins & Loftus, 1975),
successively recalling information (e.g., ‘paper’, ‘desk’, and ‘pencil’) related to one specific
cluster (e.g., objects) gradually triggers other memories (e.g., ‘counter’) which are closely related
to this cluster and might otherwise not be activated and recalled; (iv) This procedure was effective
without additional questioning. Use of the CCR only requires the interviewer to be able to explain
to the witness a simple instruction. Therefore CCR requires less effort, interference, flexibility and
training from the interviewer in comparison with witness-compatible questioning. Nonetheless,
even though Paulo et al. (2016) considered CCR was effective without additional questioning,
they did not directly compare CCR with witness-compatible questioning and suggested doing this
in future studies. Therefore, to see if CCR could be a viable alternative to witness-compatible
questioning, the present study directly compared these two procedures.
Current Study
In the present study, a Revised Cognitive Interview (RCI) with CCR instead of a
questioning phase and without the change order and change perspective mnemonics was used
to assess if: (i) using semantic clustering to guide retrieval instead of witness-compatible
questioning would allow participants to recall more correct information; (ii) replacing change
order and change perspective mnemonics with this simpler instruction for recalling new
information (‘Please focus for a couple of minutes on the video recording you have viewed two
days ago, and tell me if you can remember anything else’) would also have an impact on recall.
Two main hypotheses were established: (i) Participants interviewed with CCR instead of witness-
compatible questioning will recall more information (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning
& Kahana, 2012; Robinson, 1966); (ii) Replacing change order and change perspective
133
mnemonics with a simpler instruction for recalling new information will not reduce the amount of
recalled information.
Method
Participants
A total of 44 Portuguese psychology students, 37 female and seven male, with an age
range from 18 to 35 years (M = 20.14, SD = 3.98) participated in this study for course credits.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two interview groups with 22 participants each.
One group was interviewed with the full Cognitive Interview (CI). This group had 18 female
participants and four male participants with an age range from 18 to 35 years (M = 20.55, SD =
4.14). The other group of participants was interviewed with the revised cognitive interview (RCI).
This group had 19 female participants and 3 male participants with an age range from 18 to 35
years (M = 19.73, SD = 3.87).
Design
A between-participants design was used with interview condition as the independent
variable with two levels: Cognitive Interview (CI) or Revised Cognitive Interview (RCI). Reported
information and accuracy were measured in units of information and proportions, respectively.
Materials
Participants watched the recording on a Fujitsu L7ZA LCD computer screen. A video
recording was edited from the second episode of the 2004 Portuguese television drama
‘Inspector Max’ (Riccó & Riccó, 2004) and was three minutes and 11 seconds long. This non-
violent video recording shows a male-armed subject walking inside a bank and taking several
hostages to carry the robbery. The robber verbally and physically interacts with the hostages, with
the cashier and a police officer who later approaches the robber. All interviews were video and
audio recorded.
Procedure
Ethics committee approval was obtained. Having signed a consent form after reading
general information about the study, participants took part in two sessions. At the first session,
after being randomly assigned to one of the two interview conditions (CI vs. RCI), participants
134
were shown the video recording. Participants were asked to pay as much attention as possible to
the video recording because they would be later interviewed about this. A second session took
place approximately 48 hours later and each participant was interviewed with the CI or the RCI.
Interview protocol
The CI protocol employed (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992) had previously been translated
and adapted for the Portuguese language and found to be effective with a Portuguese population
(Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2015a; Paulo et al., 2015b).
Both interview protocols included two CI cognitive mnemonics: Report Everything and
Context Reinstatement, and the social and communicative components described in Fisher and
Geiselman (1992) such as rapport building or transfer of control. These CI mnemonics and social
components were identical in both interview conditions. The Fisher and Geiselman (1992)
guidelines for conducting the CI were followed for all interview conditions.
A brief comparison between the two interview protocols (CI vs. RCI) is provided in Table
5.1. See appendix A for a full description of the two interview protocols according to interview
phase, and how CCR was used during phase 3 for the RCI group. Preliminary phase (1), initial
free report (2) and closure (6) were exactly alike in both interview conditions. Phase 5 was
exclusive to the CI protocol.
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6
CI Preliminary Free Recall Questioning Second Recall
(Reverse Order)
New information recall
(Change Perspective)
Closure
RCI Preliminary Free Recall Second Recall
(CCR)
New information
recall
X Closure
Note: CCR, Category Clustering Recall
Table 5.1. Comparison between the two interview protocols (CI vs. RCI) according to interview phase
Interviewer training
An expert in the CI who had followed several qualified courses on investigative interview
techniques consisting of more than 50 lecture hours, practice, role-playing exercises, and
feedback/ evaluation conducted all interviews. To assure interviewer’s performance was
adequate and consistent across interview conditions, interview protocols were read verbatim
135
whenever possible (e.g., questioning needs to be adapted according to participants’ previous
recall). Furthermore, an independent expert on psychology randomly checked 25% of the
interviews to evaluate the interviewer’s verbal and non-verbal behavior with a structured
evaluation grid which included parameters such as the questioning used, established rapport,
instructions clarity and interviewer’s posture/behavior. The independent expert concluded these
parameters were adequate and consistent across interview conditions.
Coding
Interview recordings were coded with the template scoring technique from Memon,
Wark, Bull, and Köhnken (1997). A comprehensive list of details in the video recording was
compiled and units of information were categorized as referring to (i) person; (ii) action; (iii)
object; (iv) location; (v) conversation; and (vi) sound, resulting in 378 units of information.
Recalled information was classified as either correct, incorrect (e.g., saying the pistol was brown
when it was black) or confabulation (mentioning a detail or event which was not present or did
not happen). Also noted was the phase within the interview in which a unit of information was
recalled. If a unit of information (correct or not) was repeated during the same or a subsequent
phase, this information was scored only the first time it was mentioned (Prescott, Milne, & Clark,
2011). Subjective statements or opinions were disregarded (e.g., ‘The robber was gorgeous’).
Inter-rater reliability
To assess inter-rater reliability, 11 (25%) interviews were selected randomly and scored
independently by a researcher who was naive to the experiment aims and hypothesis but familiar
with the template scoring method and had access to the crime video. Intraclass correlation
coefficients (ICC) were calculated for correct information, incorrect information and
confabulations, and for the six information categories (person, action, etc.). High inter-rater
reliability was found for all measures in that ICC values ranged between .985 and 1.000 with an
overall ICC of .993.
Results
Even though participants in the CI group performed one more retrieval attempt (phase 5)
than participants in the RCI group, interview length was similar for both groups. Interview
136
duration according to interview condition and interview phase is presented in Table 5.2 as are the
recall data.
Unit of Information Accuracy Interview Time
CI RCI CI RCI CI RCI
Interview Phase M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
2 – Initial Free Report 42.18 16.58 40.46 14.67 .94 .04 .96 .04 9 2 8 2
3 – Quest. / CCR 30.18 9.14 51.86 11.75 .89 .07 .91 .05 10 3 16 6
4 – RO / New inf. 5.36 3.71 .91 2.02 .92 .11 .97 .09 5 2 2 1
5 – New inf. w/ CP 2.14 2.36 .83 .28 3 1
Note: CCR, category clustering recall; RO, reverse order; CP, change perspective; Quest., questioning; New inf., new
information recall.
Table 5.2. Number of newly recalled units of information, accuracy and interview time (in minutes) according to
interview condition and interview phase.
First, a 2 (interviews) × 3 (measures) ANOVA was conducted to see if interview condition
had an effect on recall performance throughout the entire interview (all interview phases
combined), operationalized in three measures: (1) number of correct units of information
recalled; (2) number of errors committed; and (3) number of confabulations committed. This
found a significant difference in recall performance according to interview condition, F (3, 40) =
3.16, p < .05, Wilks’ Λ= .81, p2 = .19. The univariate F tests found participants in the RCI
group (M = 93.18, SD = 23.28) recalled more correct units of information than participants in
the CI group (M = 79.32, SD = 21.66), F (1, 42) = 4.18, p < .05, p2 = .09. Furthermore,
participants in the RCI group committed a lower number of confabulations (M = .59, SD = .80)
than participants in the CI group (M = 1.46, SD = 1.50), F (1, 42) = 5.67, p < .05, p2 = .12.
There was no difference between participants in the RCI group (M = 6.45, SD = 3.57) and
participants in the CI group (M = 5.82, SD = 3.30) regarding number of errors committed
throughout the interview, F (1, 42) = .38, p = .543, p2 = .01.
Next, two mixed 2 × 3 ANOVAs were conducted to see if interview condition (CI vs. RCI)
as well as interview phase (Phase 2 vs. Phase 3 vs. Phase 4) had an effect on: (i) number of
correct units of information newly recalled on each phase, and (ii) recall accuracy (ratio between
the number of correct units of information recalled over all the recalled units of information).
Preliminary phase and closure phase were not included in these analyses because participants
137
did not recall information at these interview phases, as well as Phase 4 (third recall for new
information with change perspective), which was also excluded since only the CI group performed
this interview phase (see Table 5.2 for recall measures during this interview phase).
Regarding (i) number of correct units of information newly recalled, a main interview
condition effect for participants’ number of correct units of information recalled was found, F (1,
42) = 5.40, p = .025, p2 = .11. As previously reported, participants in the RCI condition recalled
more details than participants in the CI condition. An interview phase effect for participants’
number of correct units of information newly recalled was also found, F (1.592, 66.882) =
210.34, p < .001, p2 = .83. Pairwise comparisons revealed participants recall less new units of
information in phase 4 (see Table 5.2), in comparison with phase 3, p < .001, 95% CI [-41.640, -
34.132] and phase 2, p < .001, 95% CI [-44.187, -32.176]. Lastly, an interaction effect between
interview condition and interview phase was also found, F (1.592, 66.882) = 22.51, p < .001,
p2 = .35. Pairwise comparisons revealed no differences between participants in the RCI
condition and participants in the CI condition for number of correct units of information newly
recalled during phase 2 (initial free recall), p = .716, d = .52, 95% CI [-7.797, 11.252].
Nonetheless, during phase 3 (questioning vs. CCR) participants who performed a second recall
attempt with CCR (RCI group) recalled more new correct units of information (see Table 5.2) than
participants who answered to a witness-compatible questioning (CI group), p < .001, d = 2.04,
95% CI [-28.087, -15.277]. During phase 4 (second full recall with reverse order vs. simple
instruction for recalling new information) participants who performed a second full recall in
reverse order (CI group) recalled more new correct units of information than participants who
were simply asked to try to recall new details (RCI group), p < .001, d = 1.49, 95% CI [2.637,
6.272]. However, as shown in Table 5.2, the number of newly recalled correct units of
information was very low for both groups during phase 4, as well as for the CI group during
phase 5. Furthermore, as also shown in Table 5.2, although participants in the CI group recalled
more new correct units of information during phase 2 (initial free recall) in comparison with
phase 3 (questioning), p < .01, 95% CI [3.589, 20.411], participants in the RCI group recalled
more new correct units of information during phase 3 (second recall with CCR) in comparison
with phase 2 (initial free report), p < .01, 95% CI [-19.821, -2.998].
Regarding (ii) recall accuracy, no interview condition effect, F (1, 28) = 2.65, p = .115,
p2 = .09, interview phase effect, F (1.286, 36.001) = 2.70, p = .100, p
2 = .09, or interaction
effect, F (1.286, 36.001) = .55, p = .509, p2 = .02, was found.
138
Discussion
This study examined whether Category Clustering Recall (CCR) could, in comparison with
witness-compatible questioning, increase the quantity of information witnesses are able to report
during an investigative interview. Furthermore, this study assessed if a shorter and simpler
instruction for recalling new information at a later interview phase (‘Please focus for a few
minutes on the video recording you have viewed two days ago, and tell me if you can remember
anything else’) would be as effective as a full additional recall attempt in reverse order as
commonly used in the Cognitive Interview (CI). Our major findings were participants who
performed CCR (RCI condition) were able to recall a considerably higher number of newly correct
details with very high report accuracy. However, participants who performed a full second recall
attempt in reverse order (CI group) were able to recall more new details at this later interview
phase than participants who were simply asked to try to recall new details. Nonetheless, recall
during these last interview phases (phase four and phase five) was low for both groups.
Since Paulo et al. (2016) recently found using CCR can enhance recall in comparison
with the change order mnemonic, the present study assessed whether CCR could also be a
viable alternative to witness-compatible questioning. This study found participants who
performed a second recall task with CCR (RCI group), instead of being asked to answer a
witness-compatible questioning with mainly open-ended questions (CI group), provided more new
correct units of information. The CCR superiority effect regarding recall quantity is not only
noticeable on new recall for phase 3 (where this manipulation was conducted) but also on recall
quantity for the entire interview, even though participants in the CI condition had one more
interview phase and recalled more new information at later interview phases, as we will address
below. Furthermore, participants in the RCI group surprisingly recalled more new information
during their second recall with CCR than during their first recall attempt (initial free report). This
is quite an unusual result since the initial free report is usually where a higher number of new
details are recalled (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2013) as replicated
in this study for the CI group. Thus, using category clustering to guide recall of a crime event may
be even more effective than an initial free recall attempt and may help to obtain additional
information when the initial free report is less detailed. This is a very important finding which
should be further addressed. Furthermore, although participants in the RCI condition recalled
more information, interview length was similar for both interview conditions. The CCR took an
139
average of six more minutes to be conducted in comparison with a questioning phase, but this is
not an unexpected result given participants require more time to provide more information and
this additional interview time would not normally represent a major constraint.
As described in the method section (appendix A), participants in the CI group were
asked, in average, 8.73 open-ended questions and 1.91 close-ended questions during witness-
compatible questioning. Nonetheless, only seven information categories were used in CCR to
guide recall (person details; person location details; object details, object location details; action
details, conversation details; sound details) , thus the number of questions (vs. the number of
information categories) cannot explain CCR superiority effect. However, there are several
theoretical reasons why CCR may have been effective. First, according to the spreading activation
theory of semantic processing memory is often organized according to semantic similarity, thus
activation of semantically related memories occurs when successively recalling information
related to one specific semantic category (Collins & Loftus, 1975). Therefore, when asked to
recall, for instance, objects, recalling ‘chair’ might prime similar objects recall (e.g., ‘desk’ and
‘counter’) that might gradually trigger the recall of other related objects, such as ‘paper’ and
‘pencil’, which might otherwise not be activated and recalled. Furthermore, the present study
suggests CCR may be able to trigger recall of semantically related memories without consequent
accuracy loss. Second, previous research shows organizing information (e.g., words) into
semantic categories (e.g., animals, objects, and plants) either during encoding and/or recall
(semantic clustering) typically allows participants to recall more information whether this is used
spontaneously or not (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969; Manning & Kahana, 2012). Finally,
recalling an event in category clusters might be a natural and familiar strategy because people
often spontaneously encode, organize, and/or recall information in semantic clusters (Robinson,
1966). Therefore, CCR may be more compatible with the witnesses’ mental organization of the
event and less cognitively demanding (e.g., attention) which means more cognitive resources can
be allocated for trying to remember new details (Paulo et al., 2016).
Report accuracy was high for both interview groups. Furthermore, error and
confabulation frequency was low for both groups, even though the number of committed
confabulations was even lower for the RCI group. Therefore, even though CCR elicited more
correct details it did not compromise report accuracy. High accuracy was expected for all
interview conditions because all the interview protocols contained adequate instructions (e.g.,
instruction not to guess; rapport building; transfer of control, etc.) and adequate questioning
(when questioning was used) in order to maximize report accuracy (Fisher & Geiselman, 2010).
140
Furthermore, category clustering has previously been found to enhance recall regarding
information quantity while not compromising recall accuracy (Dalrymple-Alford & Aamiry, 1969;
Manning & Kahana, 2012; Paulo et al., 2016; Robinson, 1966).
Lastly, since the change order and change perspective mnemonics have been
particularly criticized (Bensi et al., 2011; Boon & Noon, 1994; Dando et al., 2011; Davis et al.,
2005; Kebbell et al., 1999), this study assessed whether these CI components could be replaced
with a simpler instruction for recalling new information (‘Please focus on the video recording and
tell me if you can remember anything else?’). Participants who were given this simple recall
instruction during phase 4 (RCI group) were only able to recall (in average) less than one new
unit of information at this interview phase (phase 4). However, participants in the CI group who
were instead asked to recall one more time everything they could remember in reverse order
(phase 4 - change order) and after trying to remember new details while adopting a different
internal perspective (phase 5 - change perspective), were able to recall a considerably higher
average of new units of information (five units during phase 4 and two units during phase 5).
Therefore, the change order and change perspective instructions seem to be more effective than
simply asking the participant if she/ he can add any new detail to her/ his report. Nonetheless,
new information recall at these later interview phases was, as usually found in the CI literature
(Davis et al., 2005), quite small regardless of what procedure was used. Maybe participants have
somewhat ‘exhausted’ their memory capacity and are unable to recall much more new details, or
unwilling to apply more effort, particularly in the RCI condition where participants had already
provided a very high number of new details during free recall and CCR.
Practical Implications
Not only did CCR allow the interviewer to obtain more detailed information which may be
crucial for police officers and other professionals (Fisher 2010), it also may have several practical
advantages over a questioning phase in some situations. Firstly, CCR is easier to use in
comparison with appropriate witness-compatible questioning which typically requires extensive
training and experience from the interviewer and is one of the hardest interview procedures to
conduct, partly because it needs to be highly adapted to each witness and each report.
Moreover, since CCR requires probably less effort from the interviewer, she/ he can allocate
more resources to attentively listen to and monitor the witness, plan the subsequent interview
phases, take notes if necessary, etc. Secondly, since CCR is a guided recall task (no questions
were included) instead of a questioning task, CCR may involve less interference from the
141
interviewer. Interviewers’ interference can easily have a negative impact on recall not only when
inadequate questions are asked (e.g., suggestive questions) but also if the interviewee perceives
that since the interviewer is asking him several questions she /he can adopt a less participative
role (e.g., provide shorter responses) during the interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). Therefore,
using a recall task instead of a questioning phase might encourage the interviewee to actively
participate in the interview and be more responsible for his/ her own report (transfer of control).
Thirdly, even though most interviewing procedures (e.g., rapport building, CCR, etc.) need to be
adjusted to each interview, CCR is more generic than witness-compatible questioning since while
using CCR the interviewer uses very broad information categories present in almost every crime
to guide recall. Again, this can be useful particularly for less experienced police officers who
might lack the ability to fully adapt each interview procedure to each witness. Nonetheless, CCR
should not be used instead of witness-compatible questioning at all times. As Paulo et al. (2016)
stated these techniques are often complementary. Furthermore, witness-compatible questioning
can be very important particularly when more experienced police officers are conducting the
interview and want to address a specific topic or question.
Lastly our study further supports a possible alternative for time critical situations might
be to exclude the later recall attempts from the interview protocol regardless of how they are
conducted (e.g., reverse order, different perspective, second free recall or a simple instruction to
recall new information) since these procedures seem to be unable to elicit a considerable
number of new details which might justify using these in time-demanding situations (Dando et al.,
2011; Davis et al., 2005).
Conclusions
Professionals and researchers have now available a new tool to help obtain more correct
information from the witness which may be particularly useful in situations where a recall
strategy might be more appropriate than a questioning strategy. Even though CCR might already
be partially used in the field during witness-compatible questioning (Can you describe everyone at
the crime scene?), this is likely to occur in many different ways which might have different
efficacy and likely to be combined with additional questions (e.g., was anyone else there?). To our
knowledge, this is the first study which used CCR without additional questioning and found this
procedure to be very effective in comparison with witness-compatible questioning and even in
comparison with an initial free recall attempt.
142
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
under Grant number SFRH/BD/ 84817/2012. This study was conducted at the Psychology
Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and also supported by the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science,
Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through
COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653).
References
Bensi, L., Nori, R., Gambetti, E., & Giusberti, F. (2011). The enhanced cognitive interview: A
study on the efficacy of shortened variants and single techniques. Journal of Cognitive
Psychology, 23, 311-321. doi:10.1080/20445911.2011.497485
Boon, J. & Noon, E. (1994) Changing Perspectives in Cognitive Interviewing. Psychology, Crime,
and Law, 1, 59-69. doi:10.1080/10683169408411936
Brown, C., Lloyd-Jones, T., & Robinson, M. (2008). Eliciting person descriptions from
eyewitnesses: A survey of police perceptions of eyewitness performance and reported
use of interview techniques. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20, 529-560.
doi:10.1080/09541440701728474
Campos, L., & Alonso-Quecuty, M. L. (1999). The cognitive interview: Much more than simply
“try again”. Psychology, Crime & Law, 5, 47-59. doi:10.1080/10683169908414993
Colomb, C., & Ginet, M. (2012). The cognitive interview for use with adults: an
empirical test of an alternative mnemonic and of a partial protocol. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 26, 35–47. doi:10.1002/acp.1792
Colomb, C., Ginet, M., Wright, D., Demarchi, S., & Sadler, C. (2013). Back to the real: Efficacy
and perception of a modified cognitive interview in the field. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 27, 574-583. doi:10.1002/acp.2942
143
Clarke, C., & Milne, R. (2001). National evaluation of the PEACE investigative interviewing course
(Publication No. PRAS/149). London: Home Office.
Clifford, B. R., & George, R. (1996). A field evaluation of training in three methods of
witness/victim investigative interviewing. Psychology, Crime and Law, 2, 231-248.
doi:10.1080/10683169608409780
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing.
Psychological Review, 82, 407-428. doi:10.1016/B978-1-4832-1446-7.50015-7
Dalrymple-Alford, E. C., & Aamiry, A. (1969). Language and category clustering in bilingual free
recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 8, 762-768. doi:10.1016/S0022-
5371(69)80041-1
Dando, C. J., Ormerod, T. C., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2011). When help becomes hindrance:
Unexpected errors of omission and commission in eyewitness memory resulting from
change temporal order at retrieval? Cognition, 121, 416-421.
doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.015
Dando, C., Wilcock, R., Behnkle, C., & Milne, R. (2011). Modifying the cognitive interview:
Countenancing forensic application by enhancing practicability. Psychology, Crime &
Law, 17, 491–511. doi:10.1080/10683160903334212
Dando, C. J., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2008). The cognitive interview: Inexperienced police
officers’ perceptions of their witness interviewing behaviour. Legal and Criminological
Psychology, 13, 59-70. doi:10.1348/135532506X162498
Dando, C., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2009). The cognitive interview: the efficacy of a modified
mental reinstatement of context procedure for frontline police investigators. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 23, 138-147. doi:10.1002/acp.1451
Davis, M. R., McMahon, M., & Greenwood, K. M. (2005). The efficacy of mnemonic components
of the cognitive interview: Towards a shortened variant for time-critical investigations.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 75-93. doi:10.1002/acp.1048
Fisher, R. P. (2010). Interviewing cooperative witnesses. Legal and Criminological Psychology,
15, 25-38. doi:10.1348/135532509X441891
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative
interviewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (2010). The Cognitive Interview method of conducting police
interviews: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence.
144
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 321–328.
doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2010.09.004
Geiselman, R. E., & Fisher, R. P. (2014). Interviewing witnesses and victims. In M. St-Yves (Ed.).
Investigative interviewing: Handbook of best practices. Toronto: Toronto, ON: Thomson
Reuters Publishers
Goodman, G. S., & Melinder, A. (2007). Child witness research and forensic interviews of young
children: A review. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 1-19.
doi:10.1348/135532506X156620
Griffiths, A., & Milne, R. (2010). The application of cognitive interview techniques as part of an
investigation. In C. A. Ireland & J. M. Fisher (Eds.), Consultancy and advising in forensic
practice: Empirical and practical guidelines (pp. 71–90). Chichester, UK: BPS Blackwell.
Kebbell, M. R., Milne, R., &Wagstaff, G. F. (1999). The cognitive interview: A survey of its forensic
effectiveness. Psychology, Crime and Law, 5, 101-115.
doi:10.1080/10683169908414996
Kieckhaefer, J. M., Vallano, J. P., & Compo, N. S. (2014). Examining the positive effects of
rapport building: When and why does rapport building benefit adult eyewitness memory?
Memory, 22, 1010–1023. doi:10.1080/09658211.2013.864313
Lamb, M. E., La Rooy, D. J., Malloy, L. C., & Katz, C. (2011). Children’s testimony: A handbook
of psychological research and forensic practice (2nd ed.). SXW, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
doi:10.1002/9781119998495.
Larsson, A. S., Granhag, P. A., & Spjut, E. (2002). Children’s recall and the cognitive interview:
do the positive effects hold over time? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 203-214.
doi:10.1002/acp.863
Manning, J. R., & Kahana, M. J. (2012). Interpreting semantic clustering effects in free recall.
Memory, 20, 511-517. doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.683010
Mello, E. W., & Fisher, R. P. (1996). Enhancing older adult eyewitness memory with the cognitive
interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 403–417. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-
0720(199610)10:5<403::AID-ACP395>3.0.CO;2-X
Memon, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Köhnken, G. (1997). Isolating the effects of the cognitive
interview techniques. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 179-197. doi:10.1111/j.2044-
8295.1997.tb02629.x
Milne, R. & Bull, R. (1999). Investigative Interviewing: Psychology and Practice. Chichester, WS:
Wiley. doi:10.1002/cbm.444
145
Nash, R. A., Nash, A., Morris, A., & Smith, S. L. (2015). Does rapport-building boost the
eyewitness eyeclosure effect in closed questioning. Legal and Criminological Psychology.
doi:10.1111/lcrp.12073
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The enhanced cognitive interview: Towards a
better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 15, 190-199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2015a). The Enhanced Cognitive Interview:
Expressions of uncertainty, motivation and its relation with report accuracy. Psychology,
Crime & Law, 22, 366-381. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2015.1109089
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., Saraiva, M., & Bull, R. (2015b). The enhanced cognitive
interview: Testing appropriateness perception, memory capacity and error estimate
relation with report quality. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29, 536-543.
doi:10.1002/acp.3132
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2016). Improving the enhanced cognitive interview
with a new interview strategy: Category clustering recall. Applied Cognitive Psychology,
30, 775-784. doi:10.1002/acp.32532016
Prescott, K., Milne, R., Clark, J. (2011). How effective is the enhanced cognitive interview when
aiding recall recall of older adults including memory for conversation? Journal of
Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8, 257-270. doi:10.1002/jip.142
Riccó, A. (Director), & Riccó, R. (Director). (2004). O Assalto [The robbery] [Television series
episode]. In V. Castelo (Producer), Inspector Max. Lisbon: Produções Fictícias.
Robinson, J. A. (1966). Category clustering in free recall. The Journal of Psychology:
Interdisciplinary and Applied, 62, 279-286. doi:10.1080/00223980.1966.10543793
Stein, L. M., & Memon, A. (2006). Testing the efficacy of the cognitive interview in a
developing country. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 597–605. doi:10.1002/acp.1211
Tulving, E. (1991). Concepts of human memory. In L. R. Squire, N. M. Weinberger, G. Lynch, &
J. L. McGaugh (Eds.), Memory: Organization and locus of change (pp. 3–32). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. (1973). Encoding specificity and recall processes in episodic
memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373.
Vallano, J. P., & Compo, N. S. (2015). Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal
suspects: A theoretical and empirical review. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21, 85-
99. doi:10.1037/law0000035
146
Verkampt, F., & Ginet, M. (2009). Variations of the cognitive interview: which one is the most
effective in enhancing children’s testimonies? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1279–
1296. doi:10.1002/acp.1631
Vrij, A., Fisher, R. P., Blank, H. (2015). A cognitive approach to lie detection: A meta-analysis.
Legal and Criminological Psychology. doi:10.1111/lcrp.12088
Westera, N. J., Kebbell, M. B., & Milne, B. (2011). Interviewing witnesses: Do investigative and
evidential requirements concur. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 13, 103-113.
doi:10.1108/14636641111134341
Wright, A. M., & Holliday, R. E. (2006). Enhancing the recall of young, young–old and old–old
adults with cognitive interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 19–43.
doi:10.1002/acp.1260
Wright, A. M., & Holliday, R. E. (2005). Police officers’ perceptions of older eyewitnesses. Legal
and Criminological Psychology, 10, 211-223. doi:10.1348/135532505X37001
147
Chapter IV
Conclusions
148
149
Developing new research and theory driven techniques that can be added to the
Cognitive Interview (CI) to obtain more information from the witness or evaluate her/ his report
accuracy are still crucial in the investigative interviewing field (Fisher, 2010). Furthermore, as
shown in the first article included in this dissertation, research on investigative interviewing in
Portugal is still very scarce and adequate interview protocols were not previously developed and
empirically tested with a Portuguese population. Therefore, we conducted several studies which
aimed to: (1) translate, adapt and test the efficacy of a Cognitive Interview with a Portuguese
population, thus developing the first effective CI protocol in the Portuguese language (see second
article); (2) develop new interview strategies to enhance recall (Category Clustering Recall – see
fourth and fifth article); (3) examine if verbal expressions of certainty/uncertainty (see third
article) or frequency judgments (see second article) can be used by investigative professionals to
evaluate report accuracy in a practical and time-saving way; and (4) further explore what
psychological variables and memory processes influence witnesses’ recall.
With the goal of later developing innovative empirical studies which addressed important
aspects of investigative interviewing, we first critically examined and addressed the CI literature
and usage (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2013; Paulo, Luna, & Albuquerque, 2014) with different
types of crime witnesses (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2015), particularly focusing on the
Portuguese situation regarding CI usage and research (see first article). Since almost no research
in Portugal on investigative interviewing or the Cognitive Interview has ever been published, we
determined the first crucial step would be to translate, adapt, develop and test the efficacy of a
Portuguese version of the Cognitive Interview with a Portuguese population. We found a
Portuguese version of the CI produced more information without compromising accuracy in
comparison with a structured interview. Major differences regarding the amount of elicited
information according to interview condition were found for free recall (see second article). This is
consistent with previously published studies which suggest the CI superiority effect could be
consistent across different countries and cultures (Stein & Memon, 2006). These are important
results for Portuguese professionals and researchers because interview protocols should be
translated, adapted and thoroughly tested before being used and, as mentioned above, an
assessment of the efficacy of an adequate interview protocol for crime witnesses in Portugal was
never previously made.
While conducting the investigative interviews of our first empirical study, one particularly
interesting aspect caught our attention: participants frequently and spontaneously used verbal
expressions of uncertainty (e.g., ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’) to inform the interviewer they were unsure
150
about the accuracy of the information they were providing. Since it can be very valuable for an
interviewer working in the investigative interviewing field, whom has not access to the crime
event, to assess if the information the witness is providing is accurate, evaluating if participants
can effectively monitor the accuracy of the information they are recalling can be very important
(Evans & Fisher, 2010). Even though previous CI studies (Allwood, Ask, & Granhag, 2005)
addressed participants’ ability to monitor accuracy for the information they previously recalled,
this is typically achieved with the use of numerical confidence judgments performed after the
interview has been conducted which has several disadvantages, for instance, requiring a
considerable amount of interviewer’s time and not being viable in real investigative interviews.
Furthermore we previously had found witnesses’ ability to monitor report accuracy varies
according to the method used for this purpose. Thus witnesses are not always capable of
evaluating their report accuracy, for instance, when using frequency judgments (see second
article). Since no previous study addressed if information preceded or followed by uncertainty
verbal expressions was less accurate than witnesses remaining recall, we addressed this subject
in the third article presented in this thesis. We found spontaneous ‘uncertainties’ were less
accurate than ‘certainties’ and thus their exclusion raised overall, CI, and Structured Interview,
accuracy values. Furthermore, we later replicated these findings (Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull,
2016) and found witnesses of also being capable of differentiating more accurate information by
stating they were sure about the accuracy of such information (‘full certainty’ – e.g. ‘I am
definitely sure he had a black shirt’). This is, we found for the first time witnesses are capable of
verbally and qualitatively distinguishing in a holistic, natural, and time-saving way more accurate
information (full certainty) from fairly accurate information (regular recall) and less accurate
information (uncertainties) through qualitative confidence judgments which are performed and
communicated to the interviewer verbally while the interview is still being conducted. Even though
these measures should not be taken as indisputable accuracy markers, professionals might want
to consider these as memory strength indices when analyzing witnesses’ reports.
In the first two empirical studies we presented in this dissertation (second and third
article) we repeatedly found both the change order and change perspective mnemonics to be
unable to elicit a considerable number of new details which might justify using these mnemonics
in time-demanding situations. In fact, whether these two original cognitive interview mnemonics,
or other additional recall attempts, are worth using is arguable since these often only produce
very limited additional information (Davis et al., 2005). Nonetheless, it is crucial to develop other
research and theory driven techniques which can be added to the Cognitive Interview for
151
obtaining more accurate information from the witness and replace less effective and time-
demanding CI components, like the change order and change perspective mnemonics (Fisher,
2010). For this purpose, we developed a new theory and research driven interview strategy:
Category Clustering Recall (CCR). This recall strategy is supported by previous Psychology theory
and research suggesting (1) recalling in category clusters might be a natural recall technique
which has previously shown to enhance recall in other contexts (e.g., word list recall) and may
be compatible with the witness’ mental organization of the event since witnesses often naturally
and spontaneously encode, organize and recall information in semantic categories (Manning &
Kahana, 2012); and (2) successively recalling information (e.g., ‘paper’, ‘desk’, and ‘pencil’)
related to one specific cluster (e.g., objects) might gradually trigger other memories (e.g.,
‘counter’) which are closely related to this cluster and might otherwise not be activated and
recalled, according to the spreading-activation theory of semantic processing (Collins & Loftus,
1975).
For the above stated reasons, we first tested if Category Clustering Recall could be more
effective than the Change Order mnemonic (see forth article) during participants’ second recall
attempt, and later tested if this technique could also be more effective than a witness-compatible
questioning phase conducted after a free recall attempt (see fifth article). Since witness-
compatible questioning is one of the hardest interview procedures to use in investigative
interviews and can easily have a negative impact on recall if inappropriately conducted (Fisher,
2010), having a simpler and easier to apply technique could be very valuable in some situations
(e.g., when less experienced interviewers are conducting the interviews). Therefore, if a simple
guided recall instruction like Category Clustering Recall could in some situations be as, or more,
effective than witness-compatible questioning or the change order mnemonic, this guided recall
task could be very valuable for investigative professionals.
We found participants who were interviewed with CCR were able to recall a considerably
higher number of correct details without compromising report accuracy in comparison with
participants who used the change order mnemonic during their second recall attempt (see forth
article) and participants who were asked to answer a witness-compatible questioning after a free
report attempt (see fifth article). Thus, Category Clustering Recall might be a very important
technique for investigative professionals, allowing the interviewer to obtaining more correct
information without additional questioning. CCR only requires the interviewer to be able to explain
to the witness a simple instruction, thus requiring less adjustment, effort, interference and
training from the interviewer in comparison with the traditional witness-compatible questioning or
152
the change order mnemonic. Furthermore, Category Clustering Recall was considerably more
effective than these two interview procedures.
A common goal we established for several studies presented in this thesis was to further
address what psychological variables and memory processes directly influence witnesses’ recall.
Understanding the impact of these variables on witnesses’ reports may well be very important for
researchers and practitioners to develop more effective interview protocols, and for the judicial
system, as we will address below. Among other findings, our results suggest: (1) a higher
perception of interview appropriateness is associated with more detailed reports and more
interest in being an interviewee (see second article); (2) performance on memory tests was not
related to witnesses’ subsequent recall (see second article); (3) witnesses’ frequency judgments
for their error rate was not associated to their real error rate (see second article); and (4)
witnesses who perceived themselves as more motivated during the interview had better recall
accuracy (see third article). From these findings, important implications can be drawn. For
instance, these results suggest the interviewer should always explain to the witness why each
interview procedure is being used because otherwise even the most theory-driven procedure
could be harmful for the success of the investigation if perceived as inappropriate by the witness.
Furthermore, judges, attorneys, police officers, or other professionals should not consider a
witness’s report to be ‘poor’ because she or he had low results on memory capacity tests or self-
reported, through the use of frequency judgments, to have probably committed many mistakes
during recall. Lastly, accounting for witnesses’ motivation is also a key point professionals should
consider.
Overall, our research may have major implications for researchers and professionals
working within the investigative interviewing field. Therefore, divulging these findings was
established as one of our main priorities. Concurrently, an effort to present our findings to
Portuguese professionals and researchers, promote research and debate about witness
interviewing in Portugal, as well as promote collaborations between professionals (e.g.,
researchers and police officers) was also a concern which was considered throughout this project
(Paulo, Albuquerque, & Bull, 2016). As a result, Portuguese researchers and professionals have
now available a Portuguese version of the Cognitive Interview which has been empirically tested.
Furthermore, professionals and researchers worldwide have now available new tools to enhance
witnesses’ reports and evaluate report accuracy.
As a major contribution of our research project to investigative professionals and
researchers, we would like to further highlight the development and testing of the Category
153
Clustering Recall strategy which elicited a very impressive amount of accurate information and
might be crucial in investigative interviews. Furthermore, this guided recall strategy is easier to
use in comparison with several complex interview techniques such as witness-compatible
questioning or the change order mnemonic, thus being advantageous in several situations. We
would also like to highlight how useful spontaneous verbal expressions of certainty and
uncertainty may be as memory strength indices when analyzing witnesses’ reports. Even though
these measures should not be taken as indisputable accuracy markers, these provide the
interviewer with a new simple and time-saving method to differentiate information which is more
likely to be correct from information which is less likely to be correct. Furthermore, this method
for evaluating report accuracy does not have any negative impact on recall since it is performed
spontaneously and/or after recall is provided by crime witnesses.
In sum, the studies presented in this thesis, as well as other work conducted throughout
this project, have major contributions for real-life investigations and research regarding witness
interviewing not only in Portugal, but also worldwide. Our findings provide researchers with
further insight on the psychological variables and memory processes involved in witness
interviewing, and provide professionals with new interview techniques for enhancing crime
witnesses’ recall and evaluating report accuracy, which are two key points to consider during
investigative interviews (Fisher, 2010).
References
Allwood, C., Ask, K., & Granhag, P. (2005). The cognitive interview: Effects on the realism in
witnesses’ confidence in their free recall. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11, 183–198.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10683160512331329943
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing.
Psychological Review, 82, 407-428. doi:10.1016/B978-1-4832-1446-7.50015-7
Davis, M. R., McMahon, M., & Greenwood, K. M. (2005). The efficacy of mnemonic components
of the cognitive interview: Towards a shortened variant for time-critical investigations.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 75-93. doi:10.1002/acp.1048
Evans, J. R., & Fisher, R. P. (2010). Eyewitness memory: Balancing the accuracy, precision and
quantity of information through metacognitive monitoring and control. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 25, 501–508. doi: 10.1002/acp.1722
154
Fisher, R. P. (2010). Interviewing cooperative witnesses. Legal and Criminological Psychology,
15, 25-38. doi:10.1348/135532509X441891
Manning, J. R., & Kahana, M. J. (2012). Interpreting semantic clustering effects in free recall.
Memory, 20, 511-517. doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.683010
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2013). The enhanced cognitive interview: Towards a
better use and understanding of this procedure. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 15, 190-199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.311
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B, & Bull, R. (2015). Entrevista de crianças e adolescentes em
contexto policial e forense: Uma perspectiva do desenvolvimento [Investigative
interviewing of children and adolescents: A developmental perspective]. Psicologia:
Reflexão e Crítica, 28, 623-631. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1678-7153.201528321
Paulo, R. M., Albuquerque, P. B., & Bull, R. (2016). É possível obter um bom testemunho? A
Entrevista Cognitiva Melhorada: Investigação com uma amostra Portuguesa [Is it
possible to obtain a good report? The enhanced cognitive interview: Research with a
portuguese population]. In L. Nunes, A. Sani, & S. Caridade (Eds.), Crime Justiça e
Sociedade: Visões Interdisciplinares. Porto: Edições CRIAP.
Paulo, R. M., Luna, K., & Albuquerque, P. B. (2014). La entrevista cognitiva mejorada: Cómo
interrogar a un testigo de manera eficaz [The Cognitive Interview: How to effectively
interview a witness]. Ciencia Cognitiva, 8, 12-14
Stein, L. M., & Memon, A. (2006). Testing the efficacy of the cognitive interview in a
developing country. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 597–605. doi:10.1002/acp.1211
155
Appendix A
156
157
Appendix A: Full description of the two interview protocols (CI vs. RCI)
according to interview phase.
During Phase 1 (preliminary phase) procedures such as greeting, establishing rapport,
explaining the instructions and interview purpose to the witness, transferring control of the
interview to the witness and asking not to guess were followed for both interview protocols.
During Phase 2 (initial free report) all participants were asked to recall what they could
remember about the video in any order and pace they desired. They were reminded to report
everything they could remember with as much detail as possible and mental reinstatement of
context was applied.
During Phase 3, the CI group experienced witness-compatible questioning with mainly
open-ended questions (M = 8.73, SD = 1.98) and a lower number of close-ended questions (M =
1.91, SD = .19). Similar questions were asked to all participants with the purpose of obtaining as
much new information as possible (e.g., ‘Please describe everything you can remember about
the crime scene’; ‘Please describe everything you can remember about the weapon’ — if the
participant previously reported seeing a weapon). However, slight differences across participants
in the number and type of questions used (see average number of open-ended and close-ended
questions above) was necessary to conduct appropriate witness-compatible questioning which
requires being adapted to participants’ previous recall. All questions were compatible with the
witness’ previous recall. Mental imagery instructions were also used — for example:
you told me you looked at the weapon when the robber entered the bank. Can you
please close your eyes …, think about everything you remember concerning the
weapon …, its color …, its shape …, and when you have a full picture of the
weapon in your mind describe everything you can remember about it.
Participants in the RCI group were asked instead to report everything they could
remember about the video recording once again. They were encouraged to give this second
report and this procedure’s importance was explained:
(…) I know it may seem redundant, but it is highly important you report one more
time what happened on the video (…) report not only new information you might
recall, but also all information you’ve already reported (…) Please focus as hard as
158
you can and tell me one more time what happened on the video. Even thought this
task might seem redundant, it is highly important.
For this recall attempt, RCI participants were asked to use Category Clustering Recall
(CCR). This recall strategy consisted on asking participants to recall one more time everything
they could remember about the crime episode but this time organize their recall/speech into
seven information categories (person details; person location details; object details, object
location details; action details, conversation details; sound details). Paulo et al. (2016) suggested
using these information categories because (i) these are frequently important topics for a police
investigation, therefore commonly used in investigative interviews’ coding process; (ii) these are
very broad categories which are present in almost every crime, therefore minimizing the
interviewer’s impact on the participant’s report and replacing the use of specific questions; (iii)
‘conversation’ and ‘sound’ categories focus on a different sensorial mode (hearing instead of
vision) which can be important for eliciting new information (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992).
Participants in the RCI group were not given any additional instructions or asked any additional
questions during this interview phase.
During Phase 4 (second recall) participants in the CI group were asked to report
everything they could remember about the video once again, but this time organize their
recall/speech into temporal clusters (in reverse order). Participants were again encouraged to
give this report and this procedure’s importance was explained (as described above for the RCI
group during phase 3). Participants in the RCI group were instead not asked to recall one more
time what they could remember about the video. They were simply asked to focus one last time
on the video recording and try to remember additional details they had not previously recalled:
(‘Please focus for a few minutes on the video recording you have viewed two days ago and tell
me if you can remember anything else’).
During Phase 5 (third recall) participants in the CI condition were asked to adopt a
different internal perspective in order to try to remember new details: ‘(…) please focus on the
event as if it was a normal event at the bank instead of a robbery as you probably assumed
before seeing the robber entering the bank (…) Can you remember anything else?’. This phase
was not conducted for the RCI group.
On the last phase (closure), for both groups appreciation for participants’ hard work and
cooperation was acknowledged and neutral topics were again discussed.