DESCRIPTION
A key component of the Cognitive Interview, the mode of interviewing witnesses of a crime with the strongest empirical backing, is context reinstatement. The principle behind context reinstatement is that helping witnesses imagine themselves as they were at the time of the crime facilitates memory retrieval due to the context dependent nature of memory. Sometimes, to facilitate memory, the police may even bring the witness back to the scene of the crime in order to prompt additional memories. There are some suggestions that crime scene visits might be especially helpful for some subgroups, such as individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder because specific memory deficits make context reinstatement difficult. The difficulty is that it is often prohibitively difficult to bring witnesses to the crime scene. A plausible alternative is to develop a VR environment and have witnesses virtually revisit the crime scene. This project aims to test how VR context reinstatement works in comparison to physical reinstatement (returning to the scene of the crime) and mental reinstatement (verbally assisting the witness to imagine themselves as they were during the criminal event).
Keywords
Witness interviewing, investigative interview, memory, context reinstatement.
Research question
The project is in collaboration with two MSc students,a nd so there is some scope to define your own specific area of interest within the wider study. Some example areas of focus might be:
- Does virtual context reinstatement facilitate memory retrieval at least as effectively as established methods?
- Does the method of reinstatement impact on the quality of the relationship with the interviewer?
- Do any of the methods cause greater stress or cognitive load compared to the others?
- More exploratorily – are subgroups of participants experiencing the different methods of reinstatement differently?
TYPE OF Research
The study will be experimental and will require interviewing participants about a simulated criminal event, using a (already developed) VR environment, and depending on research interest may additionally involve some qualitative interviewing.
DATA-ANALySIS
Most probably you will do quantitative data analysis which may require coding transcript of the interviews – e.g. to count the number of correct and incorrect details.
Optionally, you may also consider qualitative analysis of post-experiment interviews.
INFORMATION
Please contact Lynn Weiher (l.weiher@utwente.nl) when you are interested in this assignment. The assignment is open to two students.
Literature
Peter W. de Vries , Jordy F. Gosselt , and Jeroen Timmer (2023) The virtual crime scene: Virtual reality context reinstatement as a means to increase the quality of eyewitness statements. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/t8hqa
Hoogesteyn, K., Meijer, E., & Vrij, A. (2020, Oct). Examining witness interviewing environments. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 17(3), 238-249. https://doi.org/10.1002/jip.1549
Spreeuwers, N.E. (2016) Arousing Memory: Memories Obtained From Virtual Reality Are As Correctly Recalled As Memories Obtained From Conventional Two-Dimensional Screens. MSc thesis: https://essay.utwente.nl/71405/
Norman, D. G., Wade, K. A., Williams, M. A., & Watson, D. G. (2020). Caught virtually lying—Crime scenes in virtual reality help to expose suspects’ concealed recognition. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(1), 118-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2019.12.008