Interview Protocols to Facilitate Human Intelligence Sources' Recollections of Meetings
Published online on May 26, 2014
Abstract
Two experiments tested mnemonics for enhancing memory for family meeting occurrences and details. Experiment 1 tested a set of seven mnemonics to facilitate recollections of family meeting occurrences. Mnemonics helped respondents report 70% more event occurrences than were reported during unaided free recall. Experiment 2 tested (i) a revised set of mnemonics to facilitate recollections of family meeting occurrences and (ii) a version of the cognitive interview to facilitate recollections of event details. Similar to Experiment 1, the revised set of mnemonics helped respondents recall double the number of events recalled during unaided free recall. For event details, when compared with a control interview, the cognitive interview elicited more than twice as many person, conversation, action, and setting details. The mnemonics used in these experiments are relatively easy to modify and implement in intelligence‐gathering interviews with human intelligence sources. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.