Testing the efficacy of the cognitive interview to road traffic accident investigations

Abstract

In the current set of experiments, we examined the effectiveness of the Cognitive Interview (CI) on memory for traffic accidents. Three online experiments were conducted among Indonesian young motorcyclists who had an accident experience. Participants were interviewed about their most memorable accident experience, either with a CI or a Standard Interview (SI) method (Experiment 1). We added the time delay as the second independent variable (less than a month versus between 6 and 10 months) in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, the interview methods were compared across two age groups (adolescents versus young adults). In all experiments, the CI led to more event-related and peripheral recall than the SI. Furthermore, this effect persisted even when the event happened a long time ago and was replicated in both age groups. Our results show empirical evidence for the effectiveness of the CI in a traffic accident context, especially in a non-WEIRD country.