77 undergraduates instructed to act as kidnap victims heard taped instructions given by a mock abductor. Two days later witnesses' recall of the culprit's monologue was tested using either a Cognitive Interview or a Structured Interview. Participants then rated the abductor's voice for nine speech characteristics and attempted to identify his voice from an audiotaped lineup. No significant differences were found between the two interview conditions for accuracy or error rates in free recall, for ratings of descriptive voice characteristics, or for performance in voice identification. These earwitness results are consistent with eyewitness investigations which have yielded no positive influence of the cognitive interview on identification. It is concluded that the success of the cognitive interview is best explained through its influence on social components of interviewing.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BoonJ. C.NoonE. (1994) Changing perspectives in cognitive interviewing. Psychology, Crime and the Law, 1, 59–69.
2.
BrickerP. D.PruzanskyS. (1976) Speaker recognition. In LassN. (Ed.), Contemporary issues in experimental phonetics. New York: Academic Press. Pp. 295–326.
3.
CliffordB.MemonA. (in press) Obtaining detailed testimony: The Cognitive Interview. In Heaton-ArmstrongA.ShepherdE.WolchoverD. (Eds.), Witness testimony: Psychological, investigative and evidential perspectives. London: Blackstone Press.
4.
CroftS. (1995) Helping victims to remember. Police, November, 13–14.
5.
FisherR. (1996) Misconceptions in design and analysis of research with the cognitive interview, commentary on Memon & Stevenage on witness-memory. Psycholoquy, 7(35) witness-memory. 12.memon.
6.
FisherR. P. (1995) Interviewing victims and witnesses of crime. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 1, 732–764.
7.
FisherR. P.GeiselmanR. E. (1992) Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative interviewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Thomas.
8.
FisherR. P.GeiselmanR. E.RaymondD. S. (1987) Critical analysis of police interviewing techniques. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 15, 177–185.
9.
FisherR. P.QuigleyK. L.BrockP.ChinD.CutlerB. L. (1990) The effectiveness of the cognitive interview in description and identification tasks. Cited in RossD.ReadJ. D.TogliaM. (Eds.) (1994) Eyewitness memory: Current trends and developments. New York: Cambridge Univer. Press.
10.
GeorgeR. C. (1992) A field evaluation of the cognitive interview. Unpublished master's thesis, Polytechnic Univer. of East London, UK.
11.
GwyerP.CliffordB. R. (1997) The effects of the cognitive interview on recall, identification, confidence and the confidence/accuracy relationship. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, 121–145.
12.
Hernandez-FernaudE.Alonso-QuecutyM. (1997) The cognitive interview and lie detection: A new magnifying glass for Sherlock Holmes. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, 55–68.
13.
HershkowitzI.LambM.SternbergK.EsplinP. (1997) The relationship among interviewer utterance type, CBCA scores and the richness of children's responses. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 2, 169–176.
14.
HollienH. (1990) The acoustics of crime. New York: Plenum.
15.
KebbelM.MilneR.WagstaffG. (in press) The cognitive interview: A survey of its forensic effectiveness. Psychology, Crime and the Law.
16.
KebbelM.WagstaffG. (1996) Enhancing the practicality of the cognitive interview in forensic situations. Commentary on Memon & Stevenage on witness-memory. Psycholoquy, 7(16), witness-memory.3.memon.
17.
KoehnkenG.MilneR.MemonA.BullR. (in press) The cognitive interview: A meta-analysis. Psychology, Crime and the Law.
18.
LindsayR. C. L.WellsG. L. (1985) Improving eyewitness identifications from lineups: Simultaneous versus sequential lineup presentation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 556–564.
19.
LongfordG. (1996) The use of the cognitive interview by police officers trained on the National Investigative Interviewing Course. Unpublished master's thesis, Univer. of Portsmouth, UK.
20.
LunneyG. H. (1978) Using analysis of variance with a dichotomous dependent variable: An empirical study. Journal of Educational Measurement, 7, 263–269.
21.
MemonA.HighamP. A. (in press) A review of the cognitive interview. Psychology, Crime and the Law.
22.
MemonA.KoehnkenG. (1992) Helping witnesses to remember more: The cognitive interview. Expert Evidence, 1, 39–48.
23.
MemonA.StevenageS. V. (1996a) Interviewing witnesses: What works and what doesn't?Psycholoquy, 7(6), witness-memory.1.memon.
24.
MemonA.StevenageS. V. (1996b) A clarification of the importance of comparison groups and accuracy rates with the CI: A reply to Fisher. Psycholoquy, witness-memory.14. memon.
MemonA.WarkL.HolleyA.BullR.KoehnkenG. (1997a) Eyewitness performance in cognitive and structured interviews. Memory, 5, 639–656.
27.
MemonA.WarkL.HolleyA.BullR.KoehnkenG. (1997b) Context effects and event memory: How powerful are the effects? In PayneD.ConradF. (Eds.), Intersections in basic and applied memory research. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 175–191.
28.
MilneR. (1997) Application and analysis of the cognitive interview. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Univer. of Portsmouth, UK.
29.
SternbergK.LambM.HershkowitzI.EsplínP.RedlichA.SunshineN. (1996) The relationship between investigative utterance types and the informativeness of child witnesses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 17, 439–451.
30.
SwansonK.SearcyJ.MemonA.BartlettJ. (1998) The cognitive interview and face recognition in young and elderly witnesses. Paper presented at the American Psychology-Law Society meeting, Redondo Beach, California.
31.
TurtleJ. (1995) Officers: What do they want? What have they got?Paper presented at the first biennial meeting of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Vancouver, BC.
32.
YarmeyA. D. (1991) Descriptions of distinctive and nondistinctive voices over time. Journal of the Forensic Science Society, 31, 421–428.
33.
YarmeyA. D. (1995) Earwitness speaker identification. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 1, 792–816.
