Cognitive interview

FORENSIC PRACTICE Maria Witewska Koźmiński University, Department of Criminal Law, College of Law Cognitive interview Summary The article aims at presenting the topic of cognitive interview (CI) taking into account its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the usefulness of its application in Polish law enforcement during pre-trial proceedings. Due to the wide application of this method of questioning, mainly in countries with the common law judicial systems, it is worth considering which of the achievements of combined science and practice from Western Countries may be adapted in Poland. Are there any contraindications to conduct interviews by means of this method? If not, the question arises – what benefits it can bring to Polish practice. Key words: cognitive questioning, cognitive interview, interview, forensic psychology In recent years, the rapid development of forensic technology has somewhat overshadowed the fact that information obtained through personal sources of evidence is very important. The importance of forensic psychology cannot be overestimated in the matter of effectively acquiring testimonies and statements. The results of research on cognitive skills – perception, attention, memory and motivational processes – have greatly contributed to the development of interviewing tactics. One of the most significant achievements of psychologists is the creation of a method referred to as “cognitive interview” (CI) (Uhryn-Markiewicz, 2011). It is a four-stage interviewing procedure taking into account the specificity of memorisation and reproduction processes, which positively translates into the effects of extracting and retrieving information from the memory of the interviewed person (Stanik, 2001). The hereby article is an overview of Polish and foreign scientific literature on cognitive interviews, as well as a summary of research on the effectiveness of this method. The fathers of the cognitive interview are considered to be R.S. Geiselman, R. Fisher and A. Priska (Gruza, 2012), and the current form of the cognitive interview has been known since the 1980s. Cognitive interview, in the basic or modified form, is a tool that facilitates obtaining testimony not only from adults – it also proves effective during interrogations of children and the elderly. There are, however, some reservations regarding the use of this method in particular groups of law enforcement officers – one should take into account the limitations resulting, for example, from intellectual abilities or individual motivation of the interviewee. From a practical point of view, it is very important to ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 point out that the use of cognitive interview does not require the participation of a psychologist. The main principles of cognitive interviewing are based on the theory of the memory trace. This trace is not homogeneous – it consists of many overlapping elements. The quality of reproduction depends on their number and the existence of connections between them, that is, on the complexity of the retained event. This construction of the trace allows one to retrieve one’s memory more than one way. In the event of difficulty in remembering, one should use various tactics to facilitate the problematic process (Biederman-Zaręba, 2011). Before starting a cognitive interview, comfortable and relaxed atmosphere should be granted to the interviewed person, because it has a direct impact on the quality of the information he/she is to recall (Biederman-Zaręba, 2011). Inadequate conditions may result in much worse effects of the procedure – regardless of the actual number of details actually remembered by the subject or the overall quality of his/ her memory processes. Establishing contact with the person being interviewed, adjusting one’s manner of expression to suit his/hers and making him/her feel at ease is crucial when creating a good relationship. In the case of cognitive interview, the contact should be deepener than in cases of standard interrogation methods – it should be a comfortable, harmonious and cooperative relationship, serving to create conditions for communicating openly both intellectual and emotional, as well as perceptual content (Engel-Bernatowicz, 2013). For the sake of this relationship, the beginning 91 FORENSIC PRACTICE of cognitive interview should be the moment when the subject will be able to verbalise fears and externalise emotions. This procedure aims at relieving the person, even temporarily, from concentrating on his own fears. This type of fixation makes it much harder to make recollections (Biederman-Zaręba, 2011). The assumptions of the cognitive interview induce the asymmetry of contact, i.e. placing the interrogated person in a central position, and thus – the interviewed person should independently maintain his own version of events (Gruza, 2003) while the interviewer’s role is not as significant as in a standard questioning. Few interferences in the volunteered statement lower the likelihood of disrupting subject’s concentration (Perfect et al., 2008). In order to intensify the sensations stored in the memory and to ensure isolation from the outside world, which may be distracting, the subject is often encouraged to close his/her eyes. In addition to facilitating concentration closed eyes contribute to reducing stress level and allow achieving at least some degree of relaxation in a difficult situation of the interrogation thanks to eliminating visual interference. The suggestion to close one’s eyes may only be made by the interviewer if he/she was able to establish desired relationship with the interrogated person (Fisher, Geiselman, 2010). In contrast to standard methods of questioning the cognitive interview places a great emphasis on the psychological well-being of the interviewed person – this is particularly important when he/she is a victim of a crime. Victims interviewed with this method usually positively assess the process of interrogation themselves, feel important, noticed and treated individually, and have more confidence (Fisher, Geiselman, 2010). The first stage of cognitive interview involves the use of a context reinstatement technique. It aims at redirecting the interrogated person to the situation he/ she describes. It is advisable to quote the most complete environmental and personal context – it is recommended to describe one’s own psychophysical conditions, and make an attempt to characterise them in other persons involved in the incident (Jaśkiewicz-Obydzińska, Wach, 2005). Such a procedure comprehensively activates the recollection process. In a situation where, apart from the main thread of the event, memories about external factors, such as weather conditions, smells, or emotions, are also remembered, the recollecting person experiences the incident again, experiencing it fuller. Therefore it is worthwhile to obtain information about the impressions collected through the various senses. The specificity of coding principle, formulated by Endel Tulving, is applicable here, as is improving of the quality of recollection by using a network of specific associations created during the observation and remembering the course of events by an individual (Hanslmayr, Staudigl, 2014). To help enforcing the activation of these connections the person is asked to go back in his/her mind to the scene of the incident 92 and remember everything that was surrounding him at that time, what he/she felt then, what he/she thought. This process may possibly be facilitated by refinement commands – for example, a request to locate a window or a door in the room where the event occurred. If this turns out not effective, either, then the interrogator should refer to the layer of contextual feelings at a given moment – e.g. anger, surprise, fear. Reconstruction of the context is a technique which, out of four cognitive interview techniques, most effectively influences the memory (Memon, Higham, 1998). During a discussion about feelings, a situation may arise, in which the subject will again feel the very negative emotions accompanying the incident. When interviewing a victim of a crime it is therefore advisable for the interrogator to show empathy and offer emotional support when the aggrieved experiences difficult emotions. According to practitioners allowing temporary silence for crime victims results in their voluntary taking up the testimony after a short period of time. It is important to communicate to the interviewed that it is he/she who determines the pace of interview, and a pause does not exclude the possibility of further testimony (Fisher, Geiselman, 2010). The second stage of cognitive interview is also encountered in the interview conducted with standard methods (see: Article 171 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Proceedings), the technique of a full, free recall (“report everything” or “report all”). The interrogator should be encouraged to talk also about details that seem completely irrelevant to him. The relationship at this stage may appear unstructured, incoherent and chaotic (Jaśkiewicz-Obydzińska, Wach, 2005), but it is absolutely not to its disadvantage. Attentive listening to the subject’s statement allows the interviewer to get to know better the characteristics of interviewed person’s language, personality and thinking. Tracking the links between successive sentences, accounted a sequence of events, causal relationships or emotionally tinted descriptions of characters involved in the incident may allow the interrogator to observe the relationships taking place in the space of memory traces. The discovery of such dependencies consequently leads to the possibility of formulating appropriate questions extracting elements not yet fully remembered. The free recall is also called the „report everything” technique due to the emphasis on the desirable lack of selfcensorship in the interrogation. Often, a situation occurs where the interviewed person withholds certain information, either believing that they are not important to interrogators or that they will cause shame. They might also be unsure whether such things occurred at all. Verbalizing these elements has a positive effect on remembering others, which could otherwise be omitted and then forgotten. A reservation often formulated in relation to this way of activating memory is the proven relationship between the remembrance of false tips and the deterioration of ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 FORENSIC PRACTICE the quality of recalling further information (Goldsmith, Koriat, 2007). Despite this obstacle, the effectiveness of this stage of cognitive interview is high, which has been proven many times in experimental studies (Gwyer, Clifford, 1997). A free, full account in connection with reconstruction of the context creates the foundation for the whole cognitive interview, and it is mainly these two phases that its effectiveness depends on (Dukała et al., 2012). In the third phase of cognitive interview, so-called, chronological changes are introduced (recalling events in a different order or change order) (Verkampt, Ginet, 2010). The interviewed person is asked to present recalled events in a disturbed chronology – usually from the end to the beginning. This procedure helps in verifying the credibility of the interrogated person – it is more difficult for liars to report in this way an event that did not really take place and in which they did not participate. Such a task requires them not only to create and remember a false version of events, but also to present them in a different order than the one they have learned. This is much more difficult than telling about an incident in which you participated directly. Changing chronology in the presentation of actual facts is already in itself a cognitively burdensome task – for this reason it is not recommended to use this technique when working with children, the elderly or the mentally disabled. If the incident in the reverse order is presented by a person who is lying, the speed of speech will noticeably decrease (speech is already slower in truthful persons because of the cognitive effort); descriptions will also be less detailed. An additional advantage of this phase is the ability to break the mental patterns in interviewed persons. Some things are simply easier to remember, when they logically interconnect with the entire story kept in subject’s memory, they are compliant with subject’s views or are reminiscent of something familiar. According to the theory of cognitive diagrams events stored in semantic memory are organised in this way (Jagodzińska, 2013). By reproducing events in an unnatural, illogical chronological order, one can simultaneously distort patterns and reach an element that was previously overlooked or misrepresented. In case the interviewed person finds it difficult to follow the request for changing chronology, the interrogator may ask the question in a more descriptive form. The most common example of such a request found in literature involves asking to report an event as if it were a movie played from the end to the beginning. In the fourth stage of the cognitive interview, the interrogated presentation of the description of events from a perspective other than their own (change perspectives) is recommended (Gruza, 2003). The most common variants are taking into account the point of view of the victim, perpetrator or another witness. In interviewing children, this stage is the most controversial. Ability of abstract thinking is not yet fully ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 developed in young minds, which creates difficulties in understanding instructions and in the objective transmission of information (Holliday, 2003a). For children, a slightly different version of the command is adopted than for adults – they are asked to tell the story as a toy in the same room could see them (e.g. „what could have your teddy-bear seen if he had been there?”) (Jaśkiewicz- Obydzińska, Wach, 2005). This technique, like the previous one, helps to overcome the mental patterns and prompts you to remember more details. Some of the elements of cognitive interview are often used intuitively by practitioners conducting interviews. In countries where police officers receive training in cognitive interview, one can observe an increase in the use of his individual techniques during routine interviews. The command to recall the context is particularly popular – it is used nine times more often than other techniques (Clifford, George, 1996). Cognitive interview occurs in several varieties, thanks to which the scope of its application is significantly increased. In addition to the standard version there is e.g. a variant specially prepared for children, as well as for older people. Adaptation of cognitive interview for the purpose of questioning elderly people is called a modified cognitive interview (MCI). It was created at the end of the twentieth century with the initial aim of maintaining high efficiency of the technique while simplifying its instructions. The main principles of MCI include the following: minimising the phase of a free recall (which older people often find difficult if they are obliged to stick to a designated topic), slow down the overall pace and skip the phase of telling the story from another person’s perspective. Apart from these guidelines, the procedure is unchanged, but the key is adjusting to the questioned level of complexity of questions and moderate use of abstraction. Cognitive interview adapted to conduct interrogations of children contains additional modifications induced by the complexity of specific pediatric psychology – they include using a specific language, mimicking the child’s speech, and possibly giving up the problematic phases of change in chronology and perspective (JaśkiewiczObydzińska, Wach, 2005). According to Köhnken’s (1999) recommendations, the best way to stimulate the child’s memory is not interrupting and asking questions only when necessary – for example, when the child completely abandons the topic, becomes distracted or becomes completely silent. Among practitioners, a new, extended version of the cognitive interview (enhanced cognitive interview – ECI) is becoming popular. In addition to specific recollection techniques it also includes methods that improve communication between the interviewer and the interviewed (Dukała et al., 2012). They are aimed at creating comfortable conditions in which the interviewed person feels safe and at ease, thus minimising negative 93 FORENSIC PRACTICE effects on memory processes through anxiety or stress accompanying the procedure (Dukała et al., 2012). The quality of the relationship between the participants of the interview is influenced by specific behaviours from the interviewer, e.g. ensuring positive contact, active listening or a supportive attitude. The inclusion of the so-called principles of synchrony, that is, the interviewer should present an attitude, which will positively shape the attitude of the interrogator (Memon et al., 2003). As a result, the interviewed person should be able to take on a more active role, and thus, in a way, take control of the process and to decide what and in which order he/ she will recollect best and most effectively. A new type of technique involving deepening of depictions, referred to as “probing images”, is a variant in the extended cognitive interview. When applying it, one should focus on the issue important for the investigation and study the mental image intensively – that is, an image that may contain the sought information. By asking the right questions and persevering the analysis of one mental image, you can get much more important and, at the same time, real details from the interrogated person. The images are characterised by the pictoriality of the created representation, and although they are less accurate than the observations on which they arose, they allow re-experiencing the remembered situation (Chlewiński et al., 1997). Research conducted on ECI provided conclusions as to its high effectiveness – even higher than that of a standard cognitive hearing. Reports also mention fewer memory distortions (Dukała et al., 2012). This is probably due to establishing proper contact and applying the technique of probing images (Dukała et al., 2012). The course and general effectiveness of particular phases of each type of cognitive interview have a remarkably significant impact upon exerted questions, mainly because their content and form significantly affect the activation of imaginary pictures in the interviewee (Jaśkiewicz-Obydzińska, Wach, 2005). Unfortunately, unskilfully formulated questions may significantly limit the person being interviewed, direct him/her to an incorrect course of reasoning, or even to prompt to tell something that he/she did not witness at all. Because of the possible difficulties in recalling, a cognitive interview does not exclude active help in searching the memory of the interviewed person, but even recommends this solution. The interrogator is able to actively manage this process by asking the right questions in moments that appear difficult for the interviewed. In this way, the subject focuses on analysing specific areas of memory, in which specific information can be encoded. When recollecting, the person most often does not realise that some memories can be closely related, and thus – activating one of them brings out more. The task of the interviewer 94 is to apply and direct the method of searching the “storeroom” basing on his/her thorough knowledge of the memory mechanisms in interviewed persons (Chlewiński et al., 1997). Mnemotechnical strategies are cognitive in nature, and this means that they help to extract memories by focusing also on stimuli that via multiple channels influence a person at the time of the formation of memories (Stanik, 2001). The model theoretical procedure of a cognitive interview assumes only following the course of the statements made by the interviewed person by active listening and asking questions only when he/she abandons the topic, goes completely silent (small pauses in the statements should not immediately provoke questions from the interrogator) (Fisher, Geiselman, 2010) or it will be advisable to move to the next stage of the interview. From the perspective of the effectiveness and reliability of carrying out the cognitive interview it is best to ask open questions (Heidt et al., 2016). The entire hearing should be characterised by such a structure that as much information as possible can be obtained directly from the statement volunteered by the interviewed. However, even practitioners trained to conduct cognitive interviews often have difficulty asking only open questions. In one of the studies, the interrogators after one week of training asked only 23% of open questions, allowing those questioned to be freely narrative, while 77% were clarifying questions – „Where?”, „How?”, „When?” (Heidt et al., 2016). It is worth noting that the use of a cognitive interview is associated with the necessity of giving the interviewed person a smaller overall number of questions than in a standard hearing (Geiselman et al., 1986). As the best results of using the cognitive interview method are obtained through sincerity and commitment of the interviewed person, in practice this method is rarely used to interrogate a suspect. However, such a situation is not completely impossible (Płończyk, Sowa, 1998). Even people suspected of committing a crime can simply not remember the course of events (e.g. due to intoxication with psychoactive substances or dissociative fugue) (Walsh, Darby, 2014), and, at the same time, would like to recall everything. Information obtained from suspects through cognitive interviews can significantly contribute to the progress in the work of the law enforcement. Additionally, it should be emphasised that the persons who are honest and cooperate while giving testimony can be undoubtedly regarded as the most valuable personal sources of evidence (Department of the Army, 2006). Despite this, still relatively few scientific works are devoted to the development of methods of interviewing persons who are willing to cooperate (Rivard et al., 2014), because, according to widely accepted belief, this task is easy. Unfortunately currently used methods of interrogation do not focus on making extracting information from memory easier even for someone who makes efforts to ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 FORENSIC PRACTICE recall as many details, as possible. Often, the generally unfavourable atmosphere prevailing during the interview makes recalling and reconstructing the course of events difficult even for a person who is committed and willing to cooperate (Biederman-Zaręba, 2011). The argument in favour of propagating the use of a cognitive interview – in any form thereof – is the ability to obtain from the interviewed person more details he/she remembers. This relationship was verified already in the 1980s and is still confirmed by experimental research (Fisher, Geiselman, 2010). Cognitive interview allows to improve the extraction of information from the memory of the interrogated person by as much as 20-50% (Rivard et al., 2014), and does not cause the occurrence of a larger number of errors (Geiselman et al., 1986). The impact of a cognitive interview on the results of interviewing children cannot be overestimated. In this case, the number of details retrieved from memory is also increased by more than 20%, and the number of errors does not increase (Jaśkiewicz-Obydzińska, Wach, 2005). A cognitive interview of children aged 7 to 12 gives particularly positive results. In studies, it has often been found that information obtained from children using this method is more accurate and reflects reality better than in the case of the effects of questioning conducted in traditional ways (Holliday, 2003b). Exceptionally accurate information includes details about people and their actions during recalled situations (Milne, Bull, 2003). It is worth emphasising that the method of cognitive interview as the prime value puts the child’s welfare. It also assumes a comprehensive adaptation to the conditions of a minor, which maximises the number of remembered details, while minimising the possible negative consequences of child participation in criminal proceedings (Biederman-Zaręba, 2011). Meta-analysis of the results of 65 experimental studies conducted by various researchers over 25 years has shown that cognitive interviewing also has a beneficial effect on the quality of testimonies of people over 60 years of age. These witnesses recollected a significantly greater number of details than their peers interrogated using traditional methods (Memon et al., 2010). Another benefit of using cognitive interview mnemotechnics is the positive effect on recollecting the content of conversations. Reproducing verbal expressions is, unfortunately, very often burdened with various kinds of errors. Witnesses tend to distort conversations and simplify their content. The cognitive interview minimises the number of errors appearing in the accounts by the participants in the events, in which the verbal layer played a significant role, additionally improving the reproduction of the general sense of the speech (Campos, Alonso-Quecuta, 2008). The techniques of total free recall and retrieving the context are particularly helpful here. ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 The cognitive interview method is, unfortunately, burdened with certain disadvantages, which, however, do no undermine its value. The most frequently mentioned drawback is a long time required for effective implementation of the procedure from the beginning to the end (Rivard et al., 2014). One can try to shorten the procedure by deciding to to use only some selected techniques – those that according to the interviewer seem to be the most useful in a given situation. If interviewers are properly trained and adopt individually tailored tactics the method is not time-consuming. The reservations as to the cognitive interview concern also the methodology of verifying its effectiveness. Experimental studies are usually performed on students who do not personally participate in the incidents they testify on (Rivard et al., 2014). They usually watch films that are not a good substitute for direct participation in a sudden incident, often very dynamic and traumatising. Another serious drawback of the cognitive interview is the fact that in order for it to be successfully used on a larger scale – for example by police officers – large financial outlays would be required to carry out appropriate training. Such projects have already been implemented, for example, in Germany, the U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada, Singapore or Hong Kong (Vrij, 2009). Research conducted on a group of Polish prosecutors, in 1998, demonstrated a considerable interest in the cognitive interview among representatives of law enforcement agencies. As many as 96% of respondents thought that this method could prove more effective than a traditional questioning (Płończyk, Sowa, 1998). Nevertheless, the cognitive interview is still unknown and unused in the circles of Polish policemen and prosecutors. The opponents of cognitive interview emphasise the specificity of information obtained through this type of interview. Some of those that could not have been obtained by other means are simply unsuitable for the purposes of the proceedings (Dukała et al., 2012) (e.g. information about the emotions experienced by the witness during the incident). A disadvantage of a sort may be also seen in the phases, in which the subject is asked to change the chronology of events and adopt a different perspective. If the detail remembered during the previous phases (reconstruct the context or „report everything”) turns out to be wrong, then the interviewed, repeating it in the following stages, will be strengthened in the conviction the detail is genuine. The same mechanism affects the process of gaining certainty with respect to information initially given without conviction of its truthfulness (Dukała et al., 2012). Placing incorrect elements in the picture of the incident that is viewed at and analysed at different angles leads to blending them in. The interrogator also has to take into account the fact that the information obtained at the stage of changing perspective may be regarded as thoughts, presumptions and guesses of the testifying person, not facts (Dukała et al., 2012). Reporting the the incident 95 FORENSIC PRACTICE from the perspective of another participant raises the greatest controversy among researchers, particularly in case of using the cognitive interviewing with children, and this is the most frequent criticism (Holliday, Albon, 2004). Some psychologists say that the child may not fully understand this type of command, which in turn contributes to delivering a larger quantity of incorrect information (Holliday, 2003a). Also, the technique of reverse chronology is characterised by less versatility than the others. When questioning juveniles, one must bear in mind that probably only older children will successfully perform these tasks (Geiselman, Padilla, 1988). For the above-mentioned reasons, policemen in the USA applying cognitive interview sometimes argue that its last two phases are ineffective – also because they provide relatively little information, and one has to spend a lot of time on them. In addition, these techniques are not easy to apply (Paulo et al., 2016). The article has presented the possibilities that the use of cognitive interview opens for questioning of persons. The main and indisputable advantage of this method is increasing the number of correctly remembered details without obtaining more distorted or untrue information (Milne et al., 2013) – this coincides completely with the implementation of the paramount principle of striving for material truth. For practitioners conducting interviews, it is also important that in order to be able to use a cognitive interview, one does not need to possess university education in psychology. It makes the method an easily accessible tool, which can significantly improve the effectiveness of interviewing. An important factor is versatility, as well as the potential of modifying and adjusting elements of cognitive interview to a specific person, thus enabling full individualization of the procedure. The psychological principles underlying the cognitive interview stress the importance of establishing a bond and, in effect, creating a relationship based on trust and security between the interviewed person and the interviewer. This results not only in the increased quantity of recollected information, but also makes the interviewing situation – usually difficult and stressful – significantly less traumatizing. This may translate into the quality of the interviewed person’s contribution in further stages of the proceedings. What is more – a properly and fully applied cognitive interview allows for the extraction of complete testimony or version of the incident as early as at the first attempt, and therefore there is no need to repeat the multi-stage procedure to complete the missing information. When considering the prospective popularisation the method of cognitive interview its limitations should be taken into account. Despite the vast possibilities of individualisation this way of retrieving information from memory will not be suitable for every interviewed person. Small children, the elderly or the intellectually handicapped will probably not be able to properly 96 understand the commands meant to trigger abstract thinking. For those subjects one might try to use a modified version of cognitive interview, however, it may be also prove necessary to use traditional methods of questioning. There are also reservations as to the effectiveness of using the cognitive interview with suspects or accused persons, because only voluntary and genuine willingness to cooperate with the interviewers bring positive results. If the intention of the interviewee is to provide false explanations, then this cannot be avoided. However, thanks to the techniques used during the cognitive interview, this lie will be much easier to detect by behavioural and linguistic analysis of the statement. As regards the admissibility of using the cognitive interview in the Polish legal system, the key fact is that none of the mnemonic techniques stands in conflict with the law. Moreover, some of the recommendations concerning the cognitive interview are compliant with the principles set out in the articles of the code of criminal proceedings (ccp), e.g. granting freedom of expression (article 171 § 1 of the ccp), avoiding making suggestions (article 171 § 4 of the ccp), inadmissibility of coercion (article 171 § 5 point 1 of the ccp). So if it is not possible to use cognitive interview in its full version (e.g. due to the very limited time), it is always worth applying individual elements to improve the quality of testimony and explanations provided. Of course, one cannot forget about the formal requirements that should be met by the interview specified, among others, in art. 175 of the ccp, art. 191 of the ccp or in art 325g of the ccp. The cognitive interview should constitute the central phase of the procedure aiming at obtaining information about the incident. The recommendations for improving contact with the interrogated persons and methods of extensive personalisation of the interview are certainly worth taking into account. One of the indications for the use of cognitive interview is the passage of time from the event – the more time has passed, the more helpful this method will turn out and the more important will be the chance to recollect important details that would not be revealed by using the traditional methods (Kebbell et al., 1999). On the basis of Polish law, the issue of recording testimonies and statements obtained through cognitive interview may raise concerns. Article 143 § 1 point 2 of the code of criminal proceedings clearly identifies the need to make a record of questioning the accused and a witness, while US practitioners using cognitive interviews mention only general notes during the interview (Geiselman, Fisher, 2014). The aim of taking notes is to facilitate the interviewer listing of the most important topics and describing them with the words used by the interviewed so that in the later phases it would be possible to return to the questionable questions. Non-focusing on taking notes during an interview has an additional value – devoting the fullest possible attention to the words spoken by the ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 FORENSIC PRACTICE interviewed, which improves the quality of contact between him and the interviewer. Discrepancies between the the Polish law and American practice can be reconciled by engaging an additional person to make records or by using audio and image recorders, and then adding the script to the protocol thus limiting its content to the most important claims. Taking into consideration all the presented advantages and disadvantages of the cognitive interview, it can be stated that this is a method whose principles are worth presenting to Polish practitioners. Training courses in the use of techniques for activating the memory interviewed persons delivered as workshops by expert interviewers and specialist psychologists will enable proper, legal and effective use of cognitive interview, which will translate into increased effectiveness and informative value of questionings. Bibliography 1. Biederman-Zaręba, A. (2011). Wywiad poznawczy a przesłuchanie świadka w podeszłym wieku (Cognitive interview and questioning an elderly witness). Prokuratura i Prawo, 7–8. 2. Campos, L., Alonso-Quecuty, M.L. (2008). Language crimes and the cognitive interview: Testing its efficacy in retrieving a conversational event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9(22). DOI: 10.1002/acp.1430. 3. Chlewiński, Z., Hankała, A., Jagodzińska, M., Mazurek, B. (1997). Psychologia pamięci. (Psychology of memory) Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna. 4. Clifford, B.R., George, R. (1996). A field evaluation of training in three methods of witness/victim investigative interviewing. Psychology, Crime and Law, 2(3). DOI: 10.1080/10683169608409780. 5. Department of the Army (2006). Human Intelligence Collector Operations (FM 2-22.3 [FM 34-52]). Washington, DC: Headquarters. 6. Dukała, K., Polczyk, R., Damijan, A., Noszczyk, A., Pal, J., Paszkowski, P. (2012). Jakość i subiektywna pewność zeznań świadków. Porównanie rozszerzonej wersji wywiadu poznawczego z przesłuchaniem ustrukturyzowanym (Quality and subjective cerrtainty of witnesses’ testimony. Comparison of extended verion of cognitive interivew with a structured questioning). Problems of Forensic Sciences, 90. 7. Engel-Bernatowicz, A. (2013). Specyfika kontaktu w wywiadzie psychologicznym (Specific character of contact in psychological interview). W: K. Stemplewska-Żakowicz, K. Krejtz (ed.), Wywiad psychologiczny 2. Wywiad jako spotkanie z człowiekiem. (Psychological interview 2. Interview as an encouter with a human being). Warsaw: Pracownia Testów Psychologicznych. 8. Fisher, R.P., Geiselman, R.E. (2010). The cognitive interview method of conducting police inISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. terviews: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33(5-6). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2010.09.004. Geiselman, R.E., Fisher, R.P. (2014). Interviewing witnesses and victims. W: M. St. Yves (ed.), Investigative Interviewing: Handbook of Best Practices. Toronto: Thomson Reuters Publishers. Geiselman, R.E., Fisher, R.P., MacKinnon, D.P., Holland, H.I. (1986). Enhancement of eyewitness memory with the cognitive interview. American Journal of Psychology, 99. DOI: 10.2307/1422492. Geiselman, R.E., Padilla, J. (1988). Interviewing child witnesses with the cognitive interview. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 16. Goldsmith, M., Koriat, A. (2007). The strategic regulation of memory accuracy and informativeness. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 48. DOI: 10.1016/S0079-7421(07)48001-X. Gruza, E. (2003). Przesłuchanie poznawcze w kryminalistyce (Cognitive interview in forensic science). Prokurator, 1(13). Gruza, E. (2012). Psychologia sądowa dla prawników (Forensic science for lawyers). Warsaw: Wolters Kluwer. Gwyer, P., Clifford, B.R. (1997). The effects of the cognitive interview on recall, identification, confidence and the confidence/accuracy relationship. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11. DOI: 10.1002/ (SICI)1099-0720(199704)11:2<121::AID-ACP443 >3.0.CO;2-L. Hanslmayr, S., Staudigl, T. (2014). How brain oscillations form memories – A processing based perspective on oscillatory subsequent memory effects. NeuroImage, 85. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.05.121. Heidt, C.T., Arbuthnott, K.D., Price, H.L. (2016). The effects of distributed learning of enhanced cognitive interview training. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 23(1). DOI: 10.1080/13218719.2015. 1032950. Holliday, R.E. (2003a). Reducing misinformation effects in children with cognitive interviews: Dissociating recollection and familiarity. Child Development, 74(3). DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00565. Holliday, R.E. (2003b). The effect of a prior cognitive interview on children’s acceptance of misinformation. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17. DOI: 10.1002/acp.879. Holliday, R.E., Albon, A.J. (2004). Minimising misinformation effects in young children with cognitive interview mnemonics. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18. DOI: 10.1002/acp.973. Jagodzińska, M. (2013). Psychologia pamięci. Badania, teorie, zastosowania. (Psyhology of memory. Research, theories, applications). Gliwice: Helion. 97 FORENSIC PRACTICE 22. Jaśkiewicz-Obydzińska, T., Wach, E. (2005). Przesłuchanie poznawcze dzieci. Dziecko Krzywdzone. Teoria. Badania. Praktyka (Cognitive interviewing of children. Harmed child. Theory. Research. Practice), 4(1). 23. Kebbell, M., Milne, R., Wagstaff, G. (1999). The cognitive interview: A survey of its forensic effectiveness. Psychology, Crime and Law, 5(1–2). DOI: 10.1080/10683169908414996. 24. Köhnken, G., Milne, R., Memon, A., Bull, R. (1999). The cognitive interview: A meta-analysis, Psychology, Crime and Law, 5(1-2). DOI: 10.1080/ 10683169908414991. 25. Memon, A., Higham, P.A. (1998). A review of the cognitive interview. Psychology, Crime and Law, 5(1–2). DOI: 10.1080/10683169908415000. 26. Memon, A., Meissner, C., Fraser, J. (2010). The Cognitive Interview: A meta-analytic review and study space analysis of the past 25 years. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16(4). DOI: 10.1037/a0020518. 27. Memon, A., Vrij, A., Bull, R. (2003). Prawo i psychologia (Law and Psychology). Gdańsk: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne. 28. Milne, R., Bull, R. (2003). Does the cognitive interview help children to resist the effects of suggestive questioning?. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 8(1). DOI: 10.1348/135532503762871219. 29. 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(1). DOI: 10.1080/ 1034912X.2013.757137. 30. 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. DOI: 10.1002/acp.3253. 31. Perfect, T.J., Wagstaff, G.F., Moore, D., Andrews, B., Cleveland, V., Newcombe, S., Brisbane, K.A., Brown, L. (2008). How can we help 98 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. witnesses to remember more? It’s an (eyes) open and shut case. Law and Human Behavior, 32(4). DOI: 10.1007/s10979-007-9109-5. Płończyk, K., Sowa, A. (1998). Przesłuchanie poznawcze w teorii i praktyce prokuratorskiej (Cognitive interview in theory and prosecution practice). Prokuratura i Prawo, 7–8. Rivard, J.R., Fisher, R.P., Robertson, B., Hirn Mueller, D. (2014). testing the cognitive interview with professional interviewers: Enhancing recall of specific details of recurring events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28. DOI: 10.1002/acp.3026. Stanik, J.M. (2001). Przesłuchanie poznawcze (cognitive interview): założenia, procedura, wyniki (Cognitive interview: principles, procedure, results). W: J.M. Stanik, Z. Majchrzyk (red.), Psychologiczne i psychiatryczne opiniodawstwo sądowe w ramach nowych uregulowań prawnych (Issuing psychological and psychiatric opinions in new legal context). Katowice: Anima. Uhryn-Markiewicz, B. (2011). Potencjał psychologii śledczej a zadania procesowe Agencji Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (Potential of investigative psychology and pre-court duties of Internal Security Agency). Przegląd Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego, 5. Verkampt, F., Ginet, M. (2010). Variations of the cognitive interview: Which one is the most effective in enhancing children’s testimonies?. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24. DOI: 10.1002/ acp.1631. Vrij, A. (2009). Wykrywanie kłamstw i oszukiwania (Detecting lies and deception). Cracow: Jagiellonian University Publishing House. Walsh, K., Darby, D. (2014). Neuropsychologia kliniczna (Clinical neuropsychology). Sopot: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne. Translation Ewa Nogacka ISSUES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE 299(1) 2018