#9 - Global Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[tae.chung5]

I got this one correct, but I was not 100% sure as I chose the correct answer (A). Let me give a try to explain this question.

(A) Author mentions that the complex procedure is a problem. One effect of the complexity is that even trained officers deviate from the procedures. The author never explicitly said this is a problem and this is why I was not 100% sure. But the fact that deviation is an effect of a problem justifies a reason to worry about it.
(B) Per passage, building rapport is relevant to Cog. Interview only. But this answer choice generalized it for eliciting valuable information from a witness.
(C) Hypnosis requires less training, not zero training.
(D) Visual vs Auditory was never mentioned in the passage.
(E) Cannot find a support for usually. Rather, the opposite can be supported. Cognitive Interview is a complex procedure and it has good reliability.

[Ben DiFabbio]

I got this one correct, but I was not 100% sure as I chose the correct answer (A). Let me give a try to explain this question.

(A) Author mentions that the complex procedure is a problem. One effect of the complexity is that even trained officers deviate from the procedures. The author never explicitly said this is a problem and this is why I was not 100% sure. But the fact that deviation is an effect of a problem justifies a reason to worry about it.
(B) Per passage, building rapport is relevant to Cog. Interview only. But this answer choice generalized it for eliciting valuable information from a witness.
(C) Hypnosis requires less training, not zero training.
(D) Visual vs Auditory was never mentioned in the passage.
(E) Cannot find a support for usually. Rather, the opposite can be supported. Cognitive Interview is a complex procedure and it has good reliability.

Hey Tae,

You gave totally solid explanations for why answer choices B-E are not supported by the passage. As for the correct answer choice, A, it looks like you've identified the important part of the passage which indicates the author's belief that deviation from procedure in the cognitive interview is cause for concern. Consider the excerpt below:

"However, a problem
associated with the cognitive interview is that it is a
complex procedure, requiring substantial training to
learn and a long time to conduct. Because of this
complexity, not all officers receive this training, and
(25) even trained officers often deviate from the procedures
specified in the cognitive interview training."

The context is important here. As you pointed out, the author brings up the fact that "even trained officers often deviate from the procedures" in the section of the passage where s/he is identifying a "problem" with the cognitive interview. This is sufficient to support answer choice A as a statement with which the author would likely agree.

Well done, and happy studying!

[mab9178]

Hi,

Answer-choice E is a very strong contender. More importantly, there is support for answer-choice E, specifically for its usage of the the word "usually." The passage in Line 25 uses the word "often."

Lines 23 through 26: "Because of this complexity, not all officers receive this training, and even trained officers often deviate from the procedures specified in the cognitive interview training."

So, "complexity has the effect of forcing even trained officers to deviate from the procedures..." Is it an inappropriate inference, implicit though it may be, that this effect of deviation, which resulted from the complexity, would result in a decrease in reliability. If not why would the author bring it up as a negative?

A seems weaker than E and therefore easier to support, but insofar as the explanation that was given in the preceding post that "usually" does not have support, I need help to understand it please. In this context, would not "usually" and "often" be synonymous?

Thank you
Mazen

[katehos]

Hi Mazen!

While the passage does state that even trained officers often deviate from the procedures in cognitive interview training, this is does not mean we can support the idea that increases in complexity usually results in a reduction of information reliability across all interview procedures! All we know is that in at least one example, increased complexity led trained officers to often deviate from procedures. We don't know how this might have impacted the reliability of witness recall, nor do we know if this applies to interview procedures as a whole, so this statement in (E) is much too strong for us to support.

Additionally, we even get a counterexample to a negative correlation between complexity and reliability in the passage. For example, when discussing hypnosis, the author states that this technique is "much less complex" but still "overall accuracy...is not generally improved with hypnosis; in fact, sometimes it may deteriorate."

Answer choice (A), on the other hand, is able to be supported by the same lines about trained officers deviating from procedures. Certainly, it seems the author is concerned about this "problem" and its impact, and while the author doesn't specify exactly why this is an issue, that's ok! The answer choice accounts for that in its non-specific language, only saying that "there is reason to worry the cognitive interview is less effective if police interviewers deviate from the procedures". Additionally, (A) is more specific and supportable than (E) in that it mentions cognitive interviews specifically, while (E) refers to "interview procedures" as a whole.

I hope this helps!
Kate

[mab9178]

Hi Katehos

Thank you very much for your thorough explanation. Pointing to the multiple attacks on answer choice E is a great reminder to pay attention to EVERY word, not get caught with ONE!

Much appreciated.
Mazen

[CristinaCP]

[A] says that officers deviating from cognitive interview techniques is problematic because it might make the cognitive interview less effective. I eliminated it because although the author suggests that officers deviating from the cognitive interview techniques is problematic, they doesn't say why it's problematic. And then the answer choice infers it's problematic because of decreased effectiveness. I eliminated it because we don't know if that's the reason... it could be problematic for other reasons.

A post earlier on this thread said that it's okay to choose [A] even if the author doesn't provide a specific reason, but I don't understand why. [A] identifies a specific reason of "decreased effectiveness" that the passage doesn't support. How is it an acceptable inference?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Cristina,

The key to answering this question is understanding the context of the discussion of the cognitive interview technique in the passage.

The passage states "The cognitive interview combines cognitive techniques known to improve recall" (lines 10-11) and then states "The general consensus is that this package has proven successful in increasing the number of details recalled by witnesses, with little impact on the number of incorrect details reported" (lines 16-19). When the passage uses the word "successful" here, it is specifically in terms of the cognitive interview's goal of improving recall.

This is important because when Answer A mentions "effectiveness," that should be understood in the context of the goal, which is to improve memory recall. In other words, while there may be other reasons to like/dislike different interview techniques, the passage is only focused on what works best at helping people improve their memory recall.

Because cognitive interview uses specific interviewing techniques designed by psychologists and social psychologists, it makes sense that police interviewers who deviate from these specific techniques are going to be less effective in helping to improve memory recall. In other words, if deviating from the specific techniques was just as effective as following them, then there really wouldn't be a problem with it (at least as far as the goal of improving memory recall, which is the focus of the passage).

Notice that this question is asking with which answer would the author most likely agree, and the author would likely agree that deviating from specific procedures that have been shown to be effective at improving memory recall would likely make the interviews less effective in that context.

[azkirk123]

This is what tripped me up about "A" - doesn't the passage tell us exactly this, that deviating from the recommended procedure for cognitive interviewing DOES give results that are just as effective in terms of improving memory recall?

After all, the passage tells us that eye closure alone is improves recall "to a degree equivalent to that demonstrated by cognitive interviewing". So that seems to imply part of the cognitive interview procedure that "works" is the part where you make people close their eyes, and it doesn't really matter whether you do the rest of it or not.

I guess I was over-thinking it?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi azkirk,

While I understand what you mean, you are probably over-thinking it, or perhaps more accurately, jumping through hoops to try to disprove the answer.

The discussion of officers deviating from the procedures occurs at the end of the second paragraph. The context is that this is one of the problems with the cognitive interview. In other words, because the cognitive interview techniques are so complex, even trained officers don't always follow the procedures exactly.

In your hypothetical, if the exact way that these officers deviate from the procedures it to correctly follow the eye-closing part of the procedures but deviate on some other part of the procedure, then perhaps the author might agree that would be just as effective. The problem is that there is absolutely no reason to assume that this is the way the officers deviate from the procedures.

We have no idea of exactly how officers deviate from the procedures. It could include anything and probably would vary from officer to officer. The very fact that officers are not following the exact procedures and instead making their own modifications/deviations would provide "a reason to worry that the cognitive interview is less effective."