ABSTRACT

Most professionals working within the field of law enforcement (and related areas) would agree that interviewing a witness or a victim is a very delicate task, especially so if the witness or victim is a child (Ceci & Bruck, 1993; 1995; Poole & Lamb, 1998). Furthermore, although police officers seem to agree that witnesses usually provide central leads in criminal investigations, they also report that they often find witnesses' statements to be incomplete (Kebbel & Milne, 1998). Hence, to develop interview techniques that facilitate the elicitation of both correct and complete statements is of paramount importance. In the last decade, much research has focused on one such technique: the Cognitive Interview (for a recent review see Köhnken, Milne, Memon, & Bull, 1998). The present study focuses on the use of the Cognitive Interview to enhance children's recall.