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8. Applying Cognitive Theory in Public Health Investigations: Enhancing Food Recall with the Cognitive Interview
- Russell Sage Foundation
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8 Applying Cognitive Theory in Public Health Investigations: Enhancing Food Recall with the Cognitive Interview RONALD P. FISHER and KATHRYN L. QUIGLEY Public-health epidemiologists rely heavily on histories of food consumption to investigate foodbome outbreaks. Those histories, usually obtained between two to seven days after the suspect meal, are used to identifY specific foods consumed by ill and well persons present at the iIuplicated meal, to determine which foods are associated with the illness (Bryan, 1973). If a laboratory examination of the foods served at the meal is impossible or inadequate, the food-consumption histories may be the only source of information available to link a foodborne outbreak with a specific food (Mann, 1981). In such cases it is particularly important to obtain accurate food-consumption histories. The few studies conducted to exaluine the accuracy ofsuch histories, however, indicate that errors in food-consumption recall are frequent (Decker, Booth, Dewey, Fricker, Hutcheson, and Schaffner, 1986; Mann, 1981). Furtherluore, it has been suggested that there is little evidence or optimislu that these food-consumption histories can be improved by employing various interview techniques (Decker et aI., 1986). The goal of the current research was to improve food-consumption histories by applying a variant of the cognitive interview, a technique that has been found to enhance respondent recollection in another discipline: eyewitness memory for the details of a Clime (e.g., Fisher, Geiselman, Raymond, Jurkevich, and Warhaftig, 1987; Fisher, Geiselman, and Raymond , 1987; Geisehuan, Fisher, MacKinnon, and Holland, 1985). The cognitive interview is based on principles of luemory retrieval, cognition, 154 ENHANCING FOOD RECALL WITH THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW 155 and communication, as gathered from laboratory research in cognitive psychology and from extensive analysis of tape-recorded interviews conducted in the field (Fisher, Geiselman, and Raymond, 1987). Although the cognitive interview was developed initially to enhance witness recollection in criminal investigations, with minor modifications it should be applicable to other types of investigative interviewing, since it is based primarily on general principles of cognition. The present study examined the efficacy of the technique to obtain more extensive and accurate food-consumption histories in a simulated foodbome-outbreak investigation. The theoretical framework of the cognitive interview, as applied to eliciting food-consumption histories, is based on five general principles of cognition and memory retrieval: context reinstatement, focused retrieval, extensive retrieval, varied retrieval, and multiple representations. Below we provide a Simple conceptual description of each principle. A more detailed, concrete, step-by-step description for conducting investigative interviews is provided elsewhere (Fisher and Geiselman, in press). The principle of context reinstatement suggests that an event will be better recalled if the rememberer is in the same psychological environment as when the event occurred originally (Tulving and Thomson, 1973). Thus, the interviewer encourages the respondent to think about the environmental context (e.g., dining-room arrangement, lighting conditions) and the relevant psychological context (e.g., why the respondent selected specific foods) at the time of the original meal. The principle of focused retrieval is based on the concept that memory retrieval, especially for details, requires mental concentration (e.g., Kahneman, 1973). Any distractions from this mental concentration, whether physical (e.g., extraneous noise) or psychological (e.g., interrupting the respondent's narration to ask a question), will disrupt memory retrieval. The principle of extensive retrieval states that the more retrieval attempts one makes, the more successful recall will be (Roediger and Payne, 1982). In practice this principle is fulfilled by encouraging respondents to search through memory even if they indicate that they have recalled as much as pOSSible. It is important to note that when the respondent is encouraged to make additional searches through memory, the interviewer cannot Simply ask the same question as posed Originally. Such an approach often leads the respondent to indicate, "I already told you, I don't·know." The interviewer must vary the form of the question, at least superficially, so that the respondent is induced to make another search through memory. The concept of varied retrieval is based on the notion that memories not activated by one retrieval probe may be accessed with another probe (Anderson and Pichert, 1978). Thus, a respondent who cannot recall a fact when asked a direct question (e.g., "Did you eat any vegetables?") may provide the answer when asked a different question ("What foods did you [44.204.218.79] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:08 GMT) 156 MEMORY select last?"). In general changing the dimension of the question (e.g., from...