ABSTRACT
Witnesses of a crime are typically asked to describe the appearance of the perpetrator. Such descriptions can be of great help in assisting investigators. However, recent research suggests that one potential cost of describing a previously seen face is that, at least under some circumstances, verbalization can actually disrupt subsequent recognition performance. For example, in a study by Schooler and Engstler-Schooler (1990) subjects viewed a videotape of a bank robbery and then, after a brief delay, verbalization subjects were asked to describe the appearance of the bank robber in as much detail as possible, whereas control subjects engaged in an unrelated filler activity. All subjects were then given a recognition test that included photos of the target person and seven similar-appearing distractor photos. Compared to control subjects, verbalization subjects were significantly less accurate at recognizing the target face. In this chapter, we first review the evidence and current explanations for the disruptive effects of verbalizing previously seen faces (termed verbal overshadowiniJ, and then describe some recent findings that reveal situations in which verbalization of faces can be helpful.
