Verbal facilitation effects instead of verbal overshadowing in face memory of 4- to 6-year olds

Abstract

Research on eye witness memory in older children and adults revealed that verbally describing unfamiliar faces impairs later recognition of these faces, known as the “verbal overshadowing effect”. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a verbal overshadowing effect occurs in 4- to 6-year olds, too, and whether visualization (i.e., drawing the seen face) might elicit a visual overshadowing effect. Instead of a verbal overshadowing effect, a verbal facilitation effect was revealed with verbal intelligence being a significant predictor for recognition accuracy in the verbalization group but not in the control group. No effect of visualization was observed on recognition accuracy. Potential explanations for the results are discussed.

Keywords:

• Face memory
• verbal overshadowing
• visual overshadowing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Except for the control group which was presented with tasks in random order, however, this did not influence performance as proactive interference could be ruled out in all experimental groups (see results).