Cognitive Interview Quiz

What is the cognitive interview (CI) used for?

• To enhance the retrieval of information about a crime scene from the eyewitness’s and victim’s memory

• To create a standard interview method

• To conduct hypnosis on witnesses

• To establish a rapport with the police officers

How many stages are there in the cognitive interview?

• Two

• Three

• Five

• Four

What is the first stage of the cognitive interview?

• Report everything they can remember

• Describe events from someone else’s point of view

• Recall events in reverse order

• Reinstate the context

What is the purpose of 'Mental Reinstatement of Environmental and Personal Contexts' in the cognitive interview?

• To mentally reinstate the environmental and personal context of the crime for the witnesses

• To report every detail, even if they think that detail is trivial

• To encourage witnesses to work backwards from the end to the beginning

• To ask witnesses to use all of their five senses in their recollection of the event

What did the psychology laboratory experiment conducted by Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, and Holland (1985) compare the cognitive interview with?

• A standard police interview and a traditional interview method

• A standard police interview and hypnosis

• A standard police interview and a hypnosis interview

• A traditional interview method and hypnosis

According to the experiment conducted by Geiselman et al. (1985), which interview method led to better memory of events?

• Hypnosis

• Standard interview

• Cognitive interview

• Traditional interview method

What is one limitation of the cognitive interview?

• It is not effective in retrieving information from witnesses

• It is time-consuming to conduct and takes much longer than a standard police interview

• It does not require specialist training

• It is only used for serious crimes

Why did Kebbell and Wagstaff (1999) find that many police officers did not use the CI technique in less serious crimes?

• Because the CI technique required too much specialist training

• Because the CI technique was not approved by the police department

• Because the CI technique was not effective in less serious crimes

• Because the CI technique was not practical or helpful in terms of allocating the police to efficiently investigate incidents

What is the purpose of 'Describing the Event in Several Orders' in the cognitive interview?

• To ask witnesses to report the incident differently, describing what they think other witnesses might have seen

• To encourage witnesses to work backwards from the end to the beginning

• To mentally reinstate the environmental and personal context of the crime for the witnesses

• To report every detail, even if they think that detail is trivial

What did Geiselman et al. (1985) set out to investigate in their experiment?

• The effectiveness of a traditional interview method

• The effectiveness of hypnosis in retrieving information from witnesses

• The effectiveness of the standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police

• The effectiveness of the cognitive interview