The Cognitive Interview: The Efficacy of aModified Mental Reinstatement of ContextProcedure for Frontline Police Investigators

CORAL DANDO1*, RACHEL WILCOCK2 and REBECCA MILNE3

1School of Psychology, University of Leicester, Forensic Division, Leicester, UK2Psychology Department, London South Bank University, London, UK

3Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK

SUMMARY

The current investigative interview framework for police officers in England and Wales (and manyother countries) recommends the use of the cognitive interview (CI). One of the primary componentsof the CI is the mental reinstatement of context (MRC) instruction. However, research hasconsistently indicated that police officers do not regularly use this component and when they doit is often poorly applied. Thus the question arises as to whether some adjustment of the MRCcomponent might enhance its forensic practicability. An initial investigation was conducted as to theefficacy of a more succinct and less complex MRC technique, namely a sketch plan mentalreinstatement of context (Sketch MRC). Twenty-four hours after having viewed a crime film, adultmock witnesses were interviewed employing the traditional MRC instruction, a Sketch MRCinstruction or no mental reinstatement of context (No MRC). Analysis of overall memorialperformance revealed the Sketch MRC to be as effective as the MRC and more effective thanNo MRC. Thus, for less serious crime the Sketch MRC technique may be a viable, less complex andless time consuming alternative. Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

The current investigative interviewing model in England and Wales advocates that police

officers use the cognitive interview (CI) procedure (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992) when

interviewing any cooperative witness/victim. The CI procedure comprises several distinct

components. One of these is the mental reinstatement of context (MRC) technique

(NSLEC, 2004) which draws upon the ‘encoding-specificity’ principle of memory

(Thomson & Tulving, 1970; Tulving & Thomson, 1973). The MRC technique encourages

a witness to recreate both the psychological and physical environment which existed at the

time of the to-be-remembered (TBR) event and comprises a series of ‘mini’ instructions

aimed at facilitating the feature overlap between the event and the retrieval environment.

The beneficial effect of mentally reinstating the psychological and environmental context

within which the TBR event was encoded is well established for eyewitness memory (for

more on context and retrieval cues see Pansky, Koriat, & Goldsmith, 2005). It has been

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGYAppl. Cognit. Psychol. 23: 138–147 (2009)Published online 2 April 2008 in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1451

*Correspondence to: Coral Dando, School of Psychology, University of Leicester, Forensic Division, 106New Walk, Leicester, LE1 7EA, UK. E-mail: cjd28@le.ac.uk

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

consistently reported that the provision of contextual retrieval cues increases the amount of

correct information recalled without a concomitant increase in the number of errors (e.g.

Davis, McMahon, & Greenwood, 2005; Emmett, Clifford, & Gwyer, 2003; Memon &

Bruce, 1995; Milne & Bull, 2002).

However, field and laboratory research investigating police officers’ application of the

CI has consistently highlighted that theMRC technique is not regularly applied (e.g. Clarke

& Milne, 2001; Clifford & George, 1996; Dando, Wilcock, & Milne, in press) and when it

is the instructions given by police officers are frequently only moderately clear, often

incomplete, and generally used inappropriately (e.g. Clarke & Milne, 2001; Dando,

Wilcock, & Milne, 2008; Memon, Holley, Milne, Kohnken, & Bull, 1994). In light of the

aforementioned research, indicating the beneficial effect of MRC, it is of concern that

police interviewers are apparently unwilling and/or unable to utilize the technique.

TheMRC technique is time consuming and research has indicated that time constraints are

a factor associated with officers’ apparent failure to apply the CI procedure (e.g. Clarke &

Milne, 2001; Dando et al., 2008; Kebbell, Milne, & Wagstaff, 1999). It necessitates

numerous pauses and a slow deliberate style of presentation. Further, the technique dictates

that the interviewing officer provides the retrieval cues. Each witness’ experience of the TBR

event is likely to be subjective (Schacter, 1996). Consequently, the cues provided by the

officer may not be salient for every witness. As such they may not facilitate MRC to its best

effect. Moreover, research has suggested (Rosenbluth-Mor, 2001) that the provision of

incompatible retrieval cuesmay actually impair recall in terms of both quantity and accuracy.

Police officers often interview several witnesses of the same crime. Therefore, as the officer

gains a more complete picture of what has occurred it is also possible that he/she may

subsume such information into their MRC instructions. Thus, there is a possibility of

inadvertently introducing leading/suggestive retrieval cues during the MRC procedure.

Considering each individual prompt/instruction prior to it being given to ensure such retrieval

cues are not introduced is a demanding task. When combined with the other requirements of

the CI procedure this too may hinder officers’ forensic application of the MRC technique.

Thus, the question arises as to whether some adjustment/modification of the current

MRC technique may enhance its forensic application. All officers are briefly introduced,

during initial recruit training, to the utility of sketch plans as a beneficial ‘tool’ which can

help witnesses to explain what they have experienced (NSLEC, 2004). Indeed recent

research has suggested (Dando, Wilcock, & Milne, in press) that many police investigators

apparently recognize their value: a high percentage (44%) having used them without being

specifically instructed to do so. With this in mind a sketch plan mental reinstatement of

context (Sketch MRC) technique was devised which takes account of our concerns

surrounding the provision of retrieval cues by the interviewing officer (the relevance of

such cues, their efficacy for facilitating MRC, and the possibility of the introduction of

leading/suggestive information). We would argue that the Sketch MRC procedure, which

places the onus on the witness to generate their own retrieval cues while drawing a detailed

sketch plan, is likely to be less cognitively demanding (for the interviewer), less time

consuming and may protect against the introduction of incompatible and/or suggestive

retrieval cues.

Thus, the aim of the study reported here was to conduct an initial investigation as to the

efficacy of an interview procedure comprising the Sketch MRC technique by comparing it

to a traditional MRC, or a no mental reinstatement of context (No MRC) interview

procedure. It was hypothesised that both the Sketch MRC and the traditional MRC

interview conditions would increase quality and quantity of the information recalled by

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Modified MRC technique 139

participants compared to the No MRC condition. Further, that the Sketch MRC condition

would prove as effective, for facilitating witness recall, as the traditional MRC technique

taught to police investigators. Finally, it was hypothesised that the Sketch MRC technique

would prove less time consuming than the current MRC technique.

METHOD

Design

A between subjects experimental design was employed with interview as the independent

variable on three levels: (i) No MRC, (ii) traditional MRC and (iii) Sketch MRC. The

dependent variable was participants’ memorial performance as measured by the number of

correct, incorrect, confabulated items recalled and accuracy.

Participants

Sixty undergraduate students participated as mock witnesses. The sample comprised

43 female and 17 male participants with a mean age of 23 years (SD¼ 4.40) ranging from

19 to 39 years. G�Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, in press) and Cohen’s medium

sized effect yields a respectable power of 0.983 for 60 participants and, thus, a medium

sized effect was the smallest that the present study was designed to detect. All participants

were naive to the experimental aims and hypotheses. Written consent was obtained.

Materials

Film stimulus

Mock witnesses individually viewed a non-violent crime film of approximately 1 minute

20 seconds in duration. The stimulus film, supplied by CENTREX (the working name for

the central police training and development authority), depicted a typical volume crime

event, namely a shop till theft.

Benton visual retention test 5th Ed. (BVRT)

As this research concerned visual memory and perception the BVRT figure drawing task was

administered to indicate general short-term memory ability and visuoperceptual ability.

Interview conditions

Protocols for each of the three interview conditions were based on the phased structure

currently taught to frontline police investigators (see Milne & Bull, 1999; NSLEC, 2004).

All interviews were similarly structured comprising the same number of recall attempts in

the same order: (i) greet, (ii) rapport, (iii) explain, (iv) free recall, (v) questioning and (vi)

closure. Interviews differed, according to condition, in the forth free recall phase only.

During this phase the manipulation of the MRC technique took place. Each of the

free recall phases according to condition will now be described.

MRC

The free recall phase of interviews in this condition commenced with the interviewer

giving instructions (verbatim) aimed at aiding the participant to mentally reinstate both the

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140 C. Dando et al.

environmental and personal context surrounding the TBR event and are in line with the

MRC procedure currently taught to police investigators (see Appendix A; NSLEC, 2004).

The instructions were delivered slowly and deliberately and in between each instruction the

interviewer paused for 5 seconds to allow enough time for the participant to picture/

reinstate the context as instructed.

Sketch MRC

The free recall phase of interviews in this condition commenced with the participants being

provided with paper and pencils and then instructed (verbatim) ‘What I would like you to

do is to please draw a detailed sketch or plan of the event you saw a couple of days ago’.

Further, the participant was encouraged to draw as much detail in the sketch plan as they

wished, ‘I would like you to draw on that plan as many details as you can about the event. It

can be absolutely anything that you wish and anything that might help you to remember

that event. Also I would like you to describe to me each item/thing that you are drawing as

you draw it’. Participants were given unlimited time to draw the sketch/plan after which the

interviewer asked, ‘Please can you tell me what you remember about the film’.

No MRC

The free recall phase of interviews in this condition commenced with (verbatim) ‘To begin

can you tell me what you remember about the film’.

During the free recall phase of every interview brief notes are made to be used during the

following questioning phase. This ensured that participants were: (i) only questioned

concerning information which they had mentioned during the free recall phase and (ii)

were questioned in the same order as their mental representation of the event. Thereafter

the interviewer completed the closure phase.

Procedure

The first author, a trained CI investigative interviewer, conducted all interviews.

Participants were individually tested in two sessions. In the first session they watched the

stimulus film after which they completed the BVRT. The second session took place 48 hours

later at which point each participant was randomly allocated to one of the three interview

conditions (No MRC, Sketch MRC or MRC). Participants were interviewed individually

according to condition in a different room to that in which they viewed the stimulus film in

order to avoid spontaneous context reinstatement. Interviews were recorded for later

scoring.

Scoring

Recordings of each interview were scored using a scoring template technique (Memon,

Holley,Wark, Bull, & Kohnken, 1996). A comprehensive list of events in the film including

descriptions of people and actions was compiled, totalling 145 items of information. Every

item of information recalled by each participant was classified as either correct, incorrect

(e.g. saying the girl’s hat was black instead of brown) or as a confabulation (mentioning a

detail or event that was not present or did not happen). The position within the interview

that the information was recalled was also noted (either free report or questioning). Items of

information were only scored once. If an item of correct information had initially been

recalled in the free recall phase of the interview and then repeated again during questioning

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Modified MRC technique 141

that information was scored as correct when first mentioned and disregarded when

mentioned subsequently.

Twelve interviews (20%) were selected at random and scored independently by a

research assistant who was naive to the aims of the experiment and hypothesis. Pearson

correlations for the three memorial measures were calculated (as positive relationships

were expected, analyses were one-tailed). Results suggested very good inter-rater

reliability for all three measures; total correct items r(12)¼ .975, p< .001, total incorrect

r(12)¼ .947, p< .001 and total confabulations r(12)¼ .826, p< .001.

RESULTS

Data screening

Preliminary data screening revealed that on the basis of the BVRT administration ‘A’

scoring criteria, all participants scored within the normal parameters on total correct and

total error scores. An analysis of variance revealed no significant differences between the

interview conditions for number correct scores F(2, 57)¼ 1.962, p¼ .150 or number error

scores F(2, 57)¼ .773, p¼ .466.

Overall memorial analysis

The effect of interview on overall memorial performance (as measured by total correct,

total incorrect, total confabulations and total accuracy) and interview duration were

initially analysed. The means and standard deviations for these measures are presented in

Table 1. Accuracy was determined by dividing the total number of correct items recalled by

the total number of items (i.e. correctþ incorrectþ confabulated items). Significant

findings were examined using the Games–Howell post hoc test. Interview duration was

defined as the total amount of time (in minutes) that the researcher spent interviewing each

participant and was measured from the end of the rapport phase through to the end of the

interview.

A series of between groups ANOVAs (employing Bonferroni’s correction) revealed a

significant effect of interview on duration F(2, 57)¼ 22.703, p< 0.01, h2¼ .44. Sketch

MRC interviews (M¼ 10.14 minutes) were significantly shorter than MRC interviews

(M¼ 12.15 minutes but significantly longer than the No MRC interviews (M¼ 8.40

Table 1. Means and standard deviations for overall performance measures and interview duration forNo MRC (N¼ 20), Sketch MRC (N¼ 20) and MRC (N¼ 20) conditions

Variable

Interview condition

No MRC Sketch MRC MRC

M SD M SD M SD

Total correct 27.90 5.51 34.65 8.71 39.00 6.44Total incorrect 2.95 2.54 2.75 1.58 3.50 1.39Total confabulations 1.30 0.86 0.35 0.49 1.35 1.09Accuracy (%) 84.78 9.85 91.78 7.24 88.93 4.69Interview duration (min) 8.40 1.82 10.14 1.79 12.15 1.65

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142 C. Dando et al.

minutes). A significant effect was found for total correct recall F(2, 57)¼ 12.699, p< .001,

h2¼ .30. Both the Sketch MRC (M¼ 34.65) and MRC (M¼ 39.00) interview conditions

elicited significantly more correct items compared to the No MRC interviews (M¼ 27.90)

with no significant differences between the former two conditions. The total number of

confabulations also revealed a significant difference F(2, 57)¼ 8.764, p< .001, h2¼ .23.

Fewer confabulated items were recalled during the Sketch MRC interviews (M¼ 0.35)

compared to both the No MRC (M¼ 1.30) and MRC (M¼ 1.35) interviews with no

significant difference between the latter two conditions. Overall accuracy rate (the number

of correctly recalled items divided by the total number of items recalled) differed

significantly F(2, 57)¼ 4.851, p¼ .011, h2¼ .21. The Sketch MRC interviews were more

accurate (91.78%) than the No MRC interviews (84.78%). There was no difference

between Sketch MRC and MRC (88.93%) interviews. There was no significant effect of

interview for the total number of incorrect items recalled F(2, 57)¼ .828, p¼ .442.

Efficacy of the interview phases

Interviews in each condition comprised two recall attempts/phases. Given the

aforementioned significant findings pertaining to overall memorial performance on

measures of correct recall, incorrect recall and accuracy interviews were then analysed

according to phase to investigate where the differences between conditions may have

emanated from. Table 2 displays the means and standard deviations according to phase. A

series of between groups ANOVAs were conducted. Significant findings were examined

using Games–Howell post hoc test.

A significant difference was found between conditions for the number of correct items

recalled in the free recall phase F(2, 57)¼ 10.515, p< .001, h2¼ .27. There was no

significant difference between the Sketch MRC (M¼ 21.40) and MRC (M¼ 26.40)

conditions. MRC interviews elicited more correct items compared to NoMRC (M¼ 16.15)

interviews. However, despite the mean favouring the Sketch MRC interviews no

statistically significant difference was found between the Sketch MRC and No MRC

conditions. There was no difference between conditions for the number of correct items

recalled in the questioning phase F(2, 57)¼ .115, p¼ 549. A significant difference was

found between interview conditions for the number of confabulations in the free recall

phase F(2, 57)¼ 7.028, p¼ .002, h2¼ .17. There were fewer confabulations in the Sketch

MRC interview condition (M¼ .15) compared to the MRC condition (M¼ .65). No

Table 2. Means and standard deviations for correct recall, confabulations and accuracy according torecall attempt across conditions; No MRC (N¼ 20), Sketch MRC (N¼ 20) and MRC (N¼ 20)

Variable

Interview condition

No MRC Sketch MRC MRC

M SD M SD M SD

Correct—free recall 16.15 5.59 21.40 8.05 26.40 7.34Correct—questioning 11.75 4.93 13.25 4.22 12.60 4.21Confabulations—free recall 0.15 0.41 0.15 0.37 0.65 0.59Confabulations—questioning 1.15 0.81 0.20 0.41 0.70 0.86Accuracy—free recall (%) 96.13 8.99 96.83 6.05 95.47 7.31Accuracy—questioning (%) 76.37 20.99 84.66 19.87 77.77 13.97

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Modified MRC technique 143

significant difference was found between the Sketch MRC and the No MRC (M¼ .15)

conditions. A significant difference was also found between conditions for the number of

confabulations in the questioning phase F(2, 57)¼ 8.596, p< .001, h2¼ .02. Fewer

confabulations were found in the Sketch MRC condition (M¼ .20) compared to No MRC

condition (M¼ 1.15). No difference was found between the Sketch MRC and MRC

(M¼ .70) conditions. No significant differences were found for accuracy rates across

conditions during either the free recall F(2, 57)¼ 1.084, p¼ .345 or questioning phases

F(2, 57)¼ 2.920, p¼ .062.

DISCUSSION

Overall memorial performance

On overall performance measures, the hypothesis that a CI procedure, which replaces the

traditional MRC with the Sketch MRC technique, would be as effective as the former for

facilitating recall was supported. The amount of correct information elicited in the Sketch

MRC interviews was comparable to that elicited during the MRC interviews. Further, there

were no differences between these conditions for the amount of incorrect recall, or

accuracy rate. However, we did find that participants in the Sketch MRC condition

confabulated less than participants in both the MRC and No MRC conditions. Despite the

small number of confabulations this result is of interest. Confabulated information,

whereby thewitness fills gaps in their memory of an event with imagined experiences, is by

its very nature completely false and wholly inaccurate. As such it negatively impacts upon

any criminal investigation and any interview technique, which might mitigate the number

of confabulations, is worthy of note.

Participants’ overall memorial performance in both the Sketch MRC and MRC

interview conditions was superior to that of participants in the No MRC condition on all

measures apart from the number of incorrect items where no difference was found.

Therefore, these results provide support for our second hypothesis that some form of

assisted MRC, albeit applying a technique which had been substantially modified, would

prove more effective than providing no assistance. Finally the hypothesis that the Sketch

MRC interviews would be less time consuming than those which incorporated the

traditional MRC technique was also supported: interviews in the former condition were, on

average, 17% shorter in duration than the latter.

This reduction in the duration of the Sketch MRC interviews might initially appear of

limited consequence as, in this laboratory study, a 17% reduction equated to just a few

minutes. Nonetheless, given the considerable and well publicized time pressures

experienced by frontline police officers any reduction in the time spent conducting a

witness interview is likely to be welcome. Equally, this decrease in duration may become

more pronounced when the procedure is utilized as part of a ‘complete’ CI. For example,

the resultant sketch plan could be employed in the latter recall phases of the CI procedure

(e.g. varied and extensive retrieval) negating the need to ask the witness to draw such a

plan. Moreover, it is our opinion that the MRC technique currently taught to police officers

does not lend itself to being modified in terms of reducing its duration. A quicker version

would either have to eliminate the pauses between the mini instructions and/or reduce the

number of these instructions. This is unlikely to afford witnesses sufficient time to conduct

a memory search (e.g. Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Milne & Bull, 1999). Witnesses may

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144 C. Dando et al.

well feel hurried, thus at best, a quickMRC technique is unlikely to be an effective method

of assisting witnesses to mentally recreate the context surrounding a TBR event. Further,

unlike the Sketch MRC, such a technique would not eliminate interviewer involvement in

this process and is, therefore, unlikely to lessen the demands on the interviewer and would

not protect against the introduction of post-event information.

Memorial performance as a function of recall attempt

The previous results had indicated that the Sketch MRC interviews had no deleterious

effect on mock witness’ overall memorial performance while at the same time reducing the

duration of the interviews and the number of confabulations. However, interviews in this

study comprised two recall attempts (free recall and questioning). Consideration of each of

these attempts, individually, revealed no significant difference between the MRC and

Sketch MRC interviews for the amount of correct information, incorrect information or

accuracy during the free recall phase. However, the Sketch MRC did result in fewer

confabulations compared to the MRC condition in this phase. We would suggest that this

might be accounted for by the Sketch MRC technique and its reliance on self-initiated

contextual retrieval cues whereby the interviewer merely assisted participants to initiate

their own contextual retrieval cues. In the absence of any interviewer interference/

contamination of the MRC process inappropriate and/or unimportant retrieval cues were

not introduced by the interviewer. The application of programmatic retrieval cues (as are

taught to police investigators e.g. think about other people who may have been near you

and concentrate on what was said) have the potential to contaminate the MRC process by

introducing information which may not have occurred (e.g. there may not have been any

other persons present) or which may not have been encoded.

Thus, the above explanation would also predict that, as the interviewer had no

involvement in the free recall phase of the No MRC interviews, a similarly low number of

confabulations would also be found in this condition during this phase. Indeed this was the

case. The number of confabulations in both the Sketch MRC and No MRC conditions

during the free recall were analogous and significantly fewer than the number of

confabulations in the MRC condition. There were no differences across conditions in the

second recall attempt (questioning phase) for the amount of correct information recalled or

rate of accuracy. However, concerning the number of confabulations, the Sketch MRC

condition retained its superiority over the No MRC condition with no difference between

the Sketch MRC and MRC conditions in this phase.

Overall memorial performance analysis had indicated that the Sketch MRC interviews

were effective for reducing confabulations compared to both MRC and No MRC

conditions. This pattern of results (as a function of recall phase) suggests that the Sketch

MRC superiority effect, on this overall measure of memorial performance, is

accumulative: that while significance levels were not reached in every phase on this

measure the positive effects of the Sketch MRC procedure are apparently additive, thus,

reaching significance overall. This would indicate that the SketchMRC superiority effect is

only present when utilized as part of a homogenous interview procedure; a result that

should be borne in mind when interpreting the findings of this study.

Limitations and directions for future research

As with the majority of laboratory mock witness research the present study contained

various methodological limitations. For example, one researcher completed all the

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Modified MRC technique 145

interviews. However, this is not uncommon (e.g. Akehurst, Milne, & Kohnken, 2003;

Davis et al., 2005; McMahon, 2000) and was viewed as a strength in terms of controlling

interviewer variability (Memon et al., 1996). Further, participants were broadly aware of

the nature of the research and as such were likely to have made deliberate attempts to

encode information. In addition, a filmed stimulus event was used and it has been suggested

that MRC may be more difficult to achieve after having viewed a second hand event

(Wright & Holliday, 2007). If these were the case it may be that the Sketch MRC technique

might prove even more effective in such circumstances. Overall results indicated no

deleterious effect of the Sketch MRC, however, no account was taken of the type of

information (person, object or action) or its forensic relevance. Therefore, future research

should investigate the type of information elicited across conditions (person, object or

action) and also the relevance/importance of that information to the investigatory process.

To conclude our results provide an initial indication as to the viability of a new method of

facilitating eyewitness MRC which is a less complex and less time consuming than the

procedure currently taught to police officers. As such this may go someway to enhancing the

forensic application of a technique which, at present, appears to be infrequently/incorrectly

applied. Importantly, the Sketch MRC procedure eliminates almost all interviewer

involvement/contamination of the MRC process. In forensic settings, where the conditions

exist to support the introduction of post-event information, it is argued that this limits the

potentially deleterious effect of poorly applied MRC retrieval cues and/or incorrect

componential instructions in terms of the inadvertent introduction of such information.

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APPENDIX A

Mental reinstatement of context instruction for MRC interview condition

‘In a moment I am going to ask you to begin and to tell me what you remember about the

film. But before we start I would like to try and help you to remember as much as you can.

As I talk to you I would like you to think about each of the things I say, as I say them.

Closing your eyes or staring/looking at a blank wall or the floor may help you to think about

each of the things I say to you. To begin I would like you to try to think back to the day that

you saw the film. . .what had you been doing. . .what was theweather like. . .had you seen orspoken to anyone that day. Think about what you had been doing immediately before

coming up to see the film. . .where had you been. Now I would like you to think about

the room in which you saw the film. Try and get a picture of that room in your mind. Was

there anyone else was in that room with you.. . .if there was where were they sitting. . .didyou speak to anyone. Now I would like you to focus on the actual film. Think about the very

beginning. . .think about what you saw. . .how did it start. When you have clear picture in

you minds eye please can you tell me what you can remember about that film’

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 23: 138–147 (2009)

DOI: 10.1002/acp

Modified MRC technique 147