阅读理解。
Six years ago, a Miami woman walking through the hall of an office building casually noticed
two men standing together. Several minutes after her leaving, the men murdered a person working
in the building. Police investigators determined that the woman was the only witness who had seen
the two suspects, and could possibly describe them. In an interview with police, her memory of the
men proved disappointingly unclear.
Several days later, psychologist Ronald P. Fisher was brought in to obtain a more complete
account from the woman. Fisher’s interview produced a breakthrough-the woman reported a clear
picture of one of the suspects. She then recalled several details about his appearances. This information
gave police important leads that enabled them to arrest the suspects and close the case.
Police investigators sought the help from Fisher because of his rich knowledge in conducting the
so-called cognitive (认知的) interview, a kind of memory-rebuilding process. In its original form, the
cognitive interview focuses on guiding witnesses through four general recalling techniques: thinking
about physical surroundings and personal feelings that existed at the time of past events, reporting
everything that comes to mind about those events no matter how broken or unconnected, retelling
events in a variety of time orders, beginning to end, end to beginning, forward or backward, and
adopting different perspectives while recalling events.
Usually, an interviewer begins the cognitive approach by encouraging the witness to take an
active role in recalling information rather than giving answers only to someone else’s questions.
The witness first describes what happened in his or her own words, with no interviewer interruptions.
The interviewer then goes further with specific techniques, such as having the witness tell the details
of what happened from different perspectives.
Experiments with police detectives trained in this demanding interview method find that they get
nearly 50% more information from witnesses than before training, while error rates remain about
the same.
1. What is the purpose of writing this passage?
A. To give an account of a murder case in an office
B. To explain why Fisher was invited to a police interview.
C. To describe how cognitive method helps the woman to recall.
D. To give the readers an idea of cognitive interview.
2. The cognitive interview helped the woman to recall more by ________.
A. strengthening her memory
B. giving her encouragement
C. rebuilding her memory
D. giving her more time
3. It can be inferred from the passage that in a cognitive interview, the interviewer mainly plays
a _______role.
A. directing
B. questioning
C. passive
D. secondary
4. What is the key point of the cognitive interview?
A. The interviewer should interrupt the witness from time to time.
B. The witness is encouraged to take an active role in recalling information.
C. The interview should take place outside the police station.
D. The witness should recall details at the scene of the event.
5. Police trained in the cognitve interview method can ________.
A. get more information from the witness than before
B. decrease the error rate
C. solve the cases more quickly
D. use the method more skillfully than the psycholologists
