Clare, J., & Lewandowsky, S. (2004). Verbalizing facial memory: Criterion effects in
verbal overshadowing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 739-755.
When people view a face, describe the face, and then attempt to identify the face, their rate of correct identification is usually less than people who saw the face but didn’t describe it. This is called the verbal overshadowing effect and it has been found in many studies and not found in others. A meta-analysis of the verbal overshadowing effect has found that there is a small (but significant) negative effect of verbalization. The two leading theories of verbal overshadowing are the transfer-inappropriate retrieval (TIR) account proposed by Schooler and the retrieval based interference (RBI) account proposed by Meissner. The TIR account suggests that the act of verbalizing a visual picture interferes with ones later ability to remember the visual picture (the verbalization was inappropriate retrieval of such a holistic, visual stimulus). The RBI account suggests that, when people are describing a face, they inevitable describe some incorrect information, which, in turn, acts as misinformation for their memory of the face, leading them less likely to be able to identify it. In the present article, the authors sought to dissolve some discrepancies between these two theories by proposing a third account, that there are criterion effects in verbal overshadowing.
Experiment 1
A 2 (target present or target absent) by 3 (control, holistic description, featural description) design was used. Participants saw a person come into one of their classes and hand out papers. 20 to 30 minutes after this, some of the participants either answered questions about the face in holistic ways (honest? Adventurous?) or featural ways (brown hair? Big nose?). The rest of the participants were in the control condition. After the description phase, participants were shown either a target absent or a target present lineup and were given the option of “he is not in the lineup”.
Results
Target present: There were fewer hits and more misses for individuals that described the face.
Target absent: More correct rejections and fewer false identifications in the verbalization conditions.
Experiment 2
A 2 (5 min or 30 min delay) by 3 (control, holistic, featural) design was used. Participants viewed a photograph of a face, waited five or 30 minutes, then described the face (or did the control exercise). Participants were then given a perpetrator present lineup and were forced to choose someone.
Results
Results were collapsed across the delay variable because there were no significant effects. There was no effect of verbalization. Participants who correctly identified the perpetrator were more confident than those who did not.
Experiment 3
A 2(control, holistic) by 2(optional identification or forced choice) design was used. Face was presented for 5 sec. and then 60 minutes later the verbalization/control procedure was conducted. Then participants saw a target present lineup.
Results
Optional choice lineup: More misses in description than in control condition. Thus, verbalization reduced willingness to choose a person.
Forced choice lineup: No differences between the control and description conditions.
The results of all three studies (even when combined) provide support for Clare & Lewandowsky’s criterion shift explanation of verbal overshadowing. When participants are asked to verbalize the face and then given the option of picking a face or not, they become more conservative, and are less likely to choose someone.
Application of the results to the WITNESS model:
In 2003,
General Discussion
In three experiments, the authors provide support for their criterion shift explanation of verbal overshadowing. Verbalizing the face did lead to a decrease in the number of times people chose a face (when they had the option to not choose a face). However, the criterion shift explanation does still have a couple of problems. The first is that their explanation insists that there should never be a verbal overshadowing effect with forced choice lineups, when, in fact, there have been effects found. However, the authors remedy this problem by suggesting that most of the studies that found verbal overshadowing effects in forced choice lineups also used elaborative description instructions (write down as much as you can, even if you don’t think it is correct). The second limitation outlined by the authors is that they can’t, as of yet, explain why the recognition criterion is raised following verbalization. The authors examined two variables, confidence, and perceived difficulty of the verbalization task, but these did not seem to have an effect.