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The Verbal Overshadowing Effect in Face Recognition: A Critical Examination

Bhavneet Kaur Ahuja

Department of Psychology, Trent University

PSYC 2019H: Basic Research Methods & Stats

Tuesday 12:00

Dr. Kevin Peters

January 25, 2022

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The Verbal Overshadowing Effect in Face Recognition: A Critical Examination

Practice makes you perfect, so if you want to recall something better, practice it. This mantra

is based on years of memory research: review flashcards for your test, recap the chapter you

just finished reading. Other methods may be more effective, but this form of practice can't

harm. Attempting to recall something now usually enhances your capacity to recall it later.

But the results of the studies performed by Schooler and Engstler-Schooler contradict this.

Their study showed that when items that need to be recalled are faces, vocal practise worsens

rather than aids memory performance. In the first study done by Schooler & Engstler-

Schooler in 1990 the participants were asked to view a 30-sec videotape depicting a bank

robbery and then participated in a 20-min unrelated distracter task before being assigned to

the control group, which completed an unrelated writing task, or the experimental group,

which completed the task of face verbalization, which required them to write a 5-minute

description of the robber they had seen in the video. Finally, participants from both groups

took part in a facial recognition task in which they had to had to pick the robber out of a

photo line-up of 8 verbally similar faces, including one image of the thief from the previous

videotape. The participants were asked to identify which face they had previously seen.

Subjects were also given the option of selecting "not present" if none of the photographs

matched the robber. Participants were then asked to rate their level of certainty on a 9-point

scale ranging from 1-guessing to 9 certain. The results of this study showed that 38% of the

participants from the face verbalization condition identified the robber correctly and 64% of

the participants from the control condition recognized the robber correctly. The chi-square

test for this study revealed that the result is statistically significant, having a statistical value

of 5.93 (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990).

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Another research replicated this experiment in 1997, with the goal of learning more about the

verbal overshadowing effect and how it affects visual memory and facial recognition. In this

experiment, the participants were shown the same 30-sec videotape depicting a bank robbery.

But the researcher’s of this experiment changed the order of the filler/distracter task and the

writing task to see if removing the delay in describing the robber had any effect on the

expected results of the study. So, after showing the video of a bank robbery the participants

were assigned to the control group, which completed an unrelated writing task, or the

experimental group, which completed the task of face verbalization, which required them to

write a 5-minute description of the robber they had seen in the video. Following that, both

groups engaged in a 20-minute filler or distracter task. Finally, the participants took part in a

facial recognition task, which required them to identify the robber from a series of

photographs shown by the experimenters. The results of this study were also statistically

significant, and the change made to the order of the experiment did not have any effect on the

expected results (Dodson.et al, 1997).

The replication of this study was crucial in confirming the findings of the first experiment, as

well as identifying and correcting previous errors, and opening up new opportunities for

further research into the subject of verbal overshadowing. In the replication of order 1, the

participants will be selected in such a way that they belong to the age group 15-20 years.

They will be shown a 44-sec videotape of a bank robbery after which they will be assigned a

20min filler task before being assigned to the control group, which completed an unrelated

writing task, or the experimental group, which completed the task of face verbalization,

which required them to write a 5-minute description of the robber they had seen in the video.

Finally, participants from both groups took part in a facial recognition task in which they had

to had to pick the robber out of a photo line-up. I believe the results of this replication will be

different from that of the original study conducted by Schooler and Engstler-Schooler in 1990
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as the participants are selected from a younger age group and they might produce less exact

portrayals than grown-ups.

The experimenters did make a modification in Order 2, but the outcomes were not what they

had expected. I feel it is critical to make a change in the sequence by adding an extra task

such as making the participants perform an extra visual task with the writing task , or

changing the intervals at which the tasks are done from 20 mins to 30 mins or 10 mins, and

observe whether delaying or doing a task early has an impact on the findings. I believe that

the results of Order 2 will be different from the results of the original study conducted by

Dodson in 1997.

References:

1. Schooler, J. W., & Engstler-Schooler, T. Y. (1990). Verbal overshadowing of visual

memories: Some things are better left unsaid. Cognitive Psychology, 22(1), 36–71.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(90)90003-m
2. Dodson, C. S., Johnson, M. K., & Schooler, J. W. (1997). The verbal overshadowing
effect: Why descriptions impair face recognition. Memory & Cognition, 25(2), 129–
139. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03201107