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Verbalizing facial memory: criterion effects in verbal overshadowing
Joseph Clare1, Stephan Lewandowsky
1School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009. joe@psy.uwa.edu.au
Summary
Verbalizing a perpetrator description increases reluctance to identify them, suggesting the verbal overshadowing effect (VOE) alters recognition criteria, not memory itself.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Eyewitness Testimony
- Memory Research
Background:
- The verbal overshadowing effect (VOE) describes how describing a face can impair later recognition.
- Previous research has debated whether VOE alters memory processing or recognition criteria.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of the recognition criterion in the verbal overshadowing effect (VOE).
- To determine if verbalization changes processing style or the underlying memory trace.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments were conducted involving witnessing an event, verbally describing a perpetrator, and attempting identification.
- Experiment 1 used perpetrator-present (PP) and perpetrator-absent (PA) lineups with a 'not present' option.
- Experiment 2 employed a forced-choice identification procedure.
Main Results:
- Verbalization led to increased reluctance to identify individuals from both PP and PA lineups in Experiment 1.
- No effect of verbalization on identification performance was observed in the forced-choice procedure of Experiment 2.
- Experiment 3 replicated these findings, supporting the role of recognition criteria.
Conclusions:
- The verbal overshadowing effect (VOE) appears to stem from a shift in the recognition criterion.
- VOE does not necessarily reflect a changed processing style or alteration of the memory trace.
- Computational modeling supported the conclusion that recognition criteria are central to VOE.