Informed by the science of storytelling

What it is

Developed in the 1980s for police interviews of witnesses. It asks the witness to picture the scene again — the place, the sounds, how they felt — and uses open questions, so the witness does most of the talking. It draws on an older finding: a reminder works best when it matches how the moment was first experienced.

Sources [1][2][3]

How Echoes uses it

The interviewer works from instructions that name techniques adapted from the cognitive interview, and picks whichever fits the moment. It is told never to say a technique’s name aloud, and to ask one open question at a time.

What it is

A collaborative way of talking, developed in addiction counseling and now used widely in health care, that helps people explore their own reasons for change without judgment. Its core skills are open questions, affirmations, reflective listening and summaries.

Sources [4]

How Echoes uses it

Echoes borrows the listening, not the goal of change. Each turn, the interviewer is told to reflect back a specific detail the storyteller actually said, not its own reading of what it meant, then to ask one open question.

What it is

In 1963, psychiatrist Robert Butler described life review as a natural part of later life: looking back over one’s experiences and making sense of them. Erik Erikson had described the last stage of life as coming to accept the life one has lived. Structured life-review programs grew from this work and have been tested in controlled studies.

Sources [6][7][8]

How Echoes uses it

The Timeline path follows a life in order, and in every path the interviewer can ask “Then vs. Now”: how something felt at the time, and how it looks today. Once the app knows their birth year and a few stories are recorded, it points out a decade that has hardly come up and suggests exploring it.

What it is

Psychology research on the life story a person carries within them: an evolving story of the remembered past and the imagined future that gives a life a sense of unity and purpose.

Sources [9][10]

How Echoes uses it

The interviewer holds each story up to six parts — scene, senses, stakes, turning point, emotion, and meaning, why it matters to them now — and asks about the part that’s still thin. Every few turns, a separate automated check looks for a story left half-told and, if it finds one, suggests the interviewer return to it.