Charity Brown

Registered Replication Report

Trying to remember something now typically improves your ability to remember it later. However, after watching a video of a simulated bank robbery, participants who verbally described the robber were 25% worse at identifying the robber in a lineup than were participants who instead listed U.S. states and capitals—this has been termed the “verbal overshadowing” effect (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). More recent studies suggested that this effect might be substantially smaller than first reported. Given uncertainty about the effect size, the influence of this finding in the memory literature, and its practical importance for police procedures, we conducted two collections of preregistered direct replications (RRR1 and RRR2) that differed only in the order of the description task and a filler task. In RRR1, when the description task immediately followed the robbery, participants who provided a description were 4% less likely to select the robber than were those in the control condition. In RRR2, when the description was delayed by 20 min, they were 16% less likely to select the robber. These findings reveal a robust verbal overshadowing effect that is strongly influenced by the relative timing of the tasks. The discussion considers further implications of these replications for our understanding of verbal overshadowing.

Registered Replication Report: Schooler and Engstler-Schooler (1990).

Trying to remember something now typically improves your ability to remember it later. However, after watching a video of a simulated bank robbery, participants who verbally described the robber were 25% worse at identifying the robber in a lineup than were participants who instead listed U.S. states and capitals—this has been termed the “verbal overshadowing” effect (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). More recent studies suggested that this effect might be substantially smaller than first reported. Given uncertainty about the effect size, the influence of this finding in the memory literature, and its practical importance for police procedures, we conducted two collections of preregistered direct replications (RRR1 and RRR2) that differed only in the order of the description task and a filler task. In RRR1, when the description task immediately followed the robbery, participants who provided a description were 4% less likely to select the robber than were those in the control condition. In RRR2, when the description was delayed by 20 min, they were 16% less likely to select the robber. These findings reveal a robust verbal overshadowing effect that is strongly influenced by the relative timing of the tasks. The discussion considers further implications of these replications for our understanding of verbal overshadowing.

Eliciting person descriptions from eyewitnesses: A survey of police perceptions of eyewitness performance and reported use of interview techniques

Techniques such as the cognitive interview (CI) have the potential to improve witness recall. Nevertheless, there is also laboratory evidence of “verbal overshadowing”; the phenomenon whereby verbally describing aspects of an event (such as the face of a perpetrator) can have negative consequences for eyewitness memory. Seventy-two UK police officers were surveyed regarding their perceptions of eyewitness performance and the methods they use to elicit person descriptions from witnesses. Factors commonly believed to influence description quality were the viewing conditions of the event, the characteristics of the witness, and their mental distress. When eliciting person descriptions there was a consensus that some components of the CI were more frequently used and believed to be more useful than others. Witnesses were generally believed to provide accurate, but incomplete person descriptions. Nevertheless, there were instances where officers reported requesting elaborative face descriptions. We propose that verbal overshadowing is unlikely to be a major concern for most police officers; however, under some circumstances its potential impact should be considered. It is also clear that it would be of benefit for future research on verbal overshadowing to examine a number of variables relevant to the forensic setting.

Verbal facilitation of face recognition.

We examined the effects of verbally describing a face on face memory, as assessed in anold/new recognition task. Experiment 1 established that describing faces facilitated their later recognition. In Experiment 2, we argue that verbalization facilitated the recognition of faces that had been previously described, but not of faces intermingled with the described faces. In Experiment 3, the participants described (or did not, in the control condition) either differences or similarities between pairs of faces. Verbal facilitation was equivalent for both types of descriptions. Finally, in Experiment 4, the participants were instructed to generate either holistic or featural descriptors. Verbal facilitation was equivalent for both types of descriptors. We discuss these findings in terms of the nature of the verbalization that benefits face recognition.

Memory for actions in autism spectrum disorder

This study explored how memory for actions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing children might benefit from self-performance and experimenter demonstration, and whether these groups possess metamemory knowledge of their performance levels in this task. Children with autism were less accurate on the action memory task when they carried out each action themselves during encoding, or when no actions were implemented during this phase, but this difference was abolished when the experimenter demonstrated each action during encoding. Despite clear difficulties in the self-performed condition relative to typical children, the group with ASD also showed a beneficial effect of performing the actions themselves during instruction. Finally, children with autism were as accurate as typical children in judging the accuracy of their own memory performance, indicating an absence of metamemory difficulties for this task.

Beneficial effects of verbalization and visual distinctiveness on remembering and knowing faces

We examined the effect of verbally describing faces upon visual memory. In particular, we examined the locus of the facilitative effects of verbalization by manipulating the visual distinctiveness of the to-be-remembered faces and using the remember/know procedure as a measure of recognition performance (i.e., remember vs. know judgments). Participants were exposed to distinctive faces intermixed with typical faces and described (or not, in the control condition) each face following its presentation. Subsequently, the participants discriminated the original faces from distinctive and typical distractors in ayes/no recognition decision and made remember/know judgments. Distinctive faces elicited better discrimination performance than did typical faces. Furthermore, for both typical and distinctive faces, better discrimination performance was obtained in the description than in the control condition. Finally, these effects were evident for both recollection- and familiarity-based recognition decisions. We argue that verbalization and visual distinctiveness independently benefit face recognition, and we discuss these findings in terms of the nature of verbalization and the role of recollective and familiarity-based processes in recognition.

The effects of emotional intensity on ERP correlates of recognition memory.

The effects of negative emotional intensity on memory-related brain activity were tested by using human scalp event-related potentials (ERP). A neural index of memory function – the electrophysiological ‘Old–New’ effect – was obtained from participants undertaking a memory recognition test of previously studied (‘old’) and unstudied (‘new’) pictures of variable levels of negative emotional intensity. The magnitude of the old–new effect was compared across four different levels of linearly increasing stimulus emotional intensity. Results revealed an inverted-U-shaped effect of emotional intensity on the magnitude of ERP old–new differences starting at 300 ms after stimulus onset. These results suggest that moderate negative emotions can enhance memory brain function, whereas extreme levels of emotional intensity have the potential of inhibiting memory function. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for neurobiological and psychological models of emotion-memory interactions.

The fading affect bias: Effects of social disclosure to an interactive versus non-responsive listener

The intensity of negative emotions associated with event memories fades to a greater extent over time than positive emotions (fading affect bias or FAB). In this study, we examine how the presence and behaviour of a listener during social disclosure influences the FAB and the linguistic characteristics of event narratives. Participants recalled pleasant and unpleasant events and rated each event for its emotional intensity. Recalled events were then allocated to one of three experimental conditions: no disclosure, private verbal disclosure without a listener or social disclosure to another participant whose behaviour was experimentally manipulated. Participants again rated the emotional intensity of the events immediately after these manipulations and after a one-week delay. Verbal disclosure alone was not sufficient to enhance the FAB. However, social disclosure increased positive emotional intensity, regardless of the behaviour of the listener. Whilst talking to an interactive listener led unpleasant event memories to decrease in emotional intensity, talking to a non-responsive listener increased their negative emotional intensity. Further, listener behaviour influenced the extent of emotional expression in written event narratives. This study provides original evidence that listener behaviour during social disclosure is an important factor in the effects of social disclosure in the FAB.

Verbal overshadowing of multiple face recognition: Effects on remembering and knowing over time

“Verbal overshadowing”, the phenomenon whereby the verbal reporting of a visual memory of a face interferes with subsequent recognition of that face, arises for the presentation of multiple faces following a single face description. We examined the time course of verbal overshadowing in the multiple face paradigm, and its influence on recollection and familiarity-based recognition judgements. Participants were presented with a series of faces and then described a further face (or not, in the control condition). Study faces were subsequently discriminated from distractors at either a short or long lag after initial presentation, in a yes/no recognition task using the remember/know procedure. Verbal overshadowing was most apparent at the short lag, for discrimination and false “know” judgements. We discuss these findings in terms of the nature of verbal interference in this paradigm.

Verbal overshadowing of perceptual discrimination

We examined effects of verbal interference on a perceptual discrimination task. Participants were presented with a series of faces, described (or did not describe) an additional face, and then made face/ nonface decisions to both the original faces and new faces, intermingled with nonfaces. This enabled us to examine the effect of making a verbal description, relative to an unrelated filler task in a control condition, on the perceptual discrimination of faces seen for the first time and faces encountered previously, and also on repetition priming (i.e., the facilitative effect of an encounter with a stimulus on subsequent processing of the same stimulus). Verbalization interfered with performance on both new and studied faces, but it did not interfere with priming. We argue that verbalization encouraged a relatively long-lasting shift (over a number of trials) toward greater visual processing of individual facial features at the expense of more global visual processing, which is generally beneficial for the recognition of faces and important for discriminating faces from nonfaces in the face decision task.