Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

witness makes a particular statement) or verbally

(by asking leading or suggestive questions, e.g., Was it

a red car?).

Accuracy of Response.To promote high accuracy,

interviewers should explicitly instruct witnesses not to

guess; rather, witnesses should indicate that they

“don’t know.” Interviewers should also refrain from

applying social pressure on witnesses or otherwise

encouraging them to answer questions whose answers

they are unsure of. This is particularly important when

interviewing children.

Communication

For police interviews to be effective, the investigators

must communicate their investigative needs to the

witness. Witnesses must also communicate their

knowledge of the crime to the investigator. Ineffective

communication will lead witnesses to withhold valu-

able information or provide irrelevant, imprecise, or

incorrect answers.

Promoting Extensive, Detailed Responses.Police inter-

views require witnesses to describe people, objects, and

actions in more detail than civilians normally do in

casual conversation. To promote such extraordinary

descriptions, police officers should convey explicitly

their need for extensive detail, which they rarely do.

Sometimes witnesses withhold information because

they mistakenly believe that it is not relevant for a

police investigation. To minimize witnesses’ withhold-

ing valuable information, interviewers should instruct

witnesses to report everything they think about,

whether it is trivial, whether it is out of chronological

order, or even if it contradicts a statement made earlier.

Investigators often direct witnesses to provide rele-

vant information by asking many specific, short-

answer questions about investigatively relevant topics—

for example, the perpetrator’s age, height, or weapon.

This questioning style minimizes irrelevant informa-

tion, but at the cost of minimizing unsolicited informa-

tion and sometimes inducing incorrect responses.

Rather than asking many specific questions, interview-

ers should explicitly instruct witnesses to generate

descriptive narratives, without waiting for the inter-

viewer to ask questions.

Code-Compatible Output. Interviewers and respon-

dents often exchange ideas using only the verbal

medium. Some people, however, are more expressive

nonverbally, and some events are better described

nonverbally. Ideally, the response format should be

compatible with the witness’s mental record of the

event. If an event is inherently spatial (e.g., the loca-

tion of objects within a room), then witnesses should

respond spatially—for example, by drawing a sketch

of the room. In general, encouraging witnesses to

sketch out the crime scene should promote more

extensive recall.

Sequence of the Cognitive Interview

The CI follows a designated order intended to maxi-

mize the effectiveness of the individual techniques. The

recommended sequence is common to many interview-

ing protocols in that it progresses from asking open-

ended questions to more specific follow-up probes. The

CI is divided into five sections: introduction, open-

ended narration, probing for details, review, and closing

the interview. The introduction establishes the appro-

priate psychological states and interpersonal dynamics

to promote efficient memory and communication dur-

ing the remainder of the interview. The open-ended nar-

ration allows the witness to provide an uninterrupted

narrative of his or her recollection of the crime. The

interviewer follows up by probing information-rich

images, initially with framed, open-ended questions

and then with more specific probes. When all the infor-

mation has been collected, the interviewer reviews the

witness’s statement to clarify any ambiguities and to

resolve any contradictions. Finally, the investigator

closes the interview by collecting official information

(e.g., contact information) and encouraging the witness

to contact him or her in the future.

Although this is the optimal sequence, interviews

invariably deviate from this plan as unexpected condi-

tions arise. In that regard, the CI is more of a general

guideline for conducting an interview rather than a

fixed recipe.

Empirical Testing to

Validate the Cognitive Interview

The CI has been examined in approximtely100 labora-

tory tests, most of which were conducted in the United

States, England, Germany, and Australia. In these tests,

volunteer witnesses (typically, but not always, college

students) observe either a live, nonthreatening event or a

film of a simulated crime. Several hours or a few days

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