The effects of verbalization on face recognition in young and older adults

To explore the forensic implications of 'verbal overshadowing' in young and older eyewitnesses, we examined the effects of providing a verbal face description on subsequent performance in a lineup task. Young (18-30 years) and older (60-80 years) adults viewed a videotaped crime and performed some unrelated cognitive tasks. Participants in the experimental condition were then asked to supply a description of the target person in the event or to perform a control task. Upon completing the description/control task participants attempted to identify the target person from a target present photo-lineup presented in a sequential or simultaneous mode. Older participants made more false choices and sequential testing reduced correct choices. There was a weak trend consistent with verbal overshadowing that was unrelated to age as well as measures of verbal and face-matching expertise. Although overshadowing reduced performance only slightly, it appeared to affect the self-reported use of a feature-matching strategy linked to accurate decisions by young adults and inaccurate decisions by senior adults. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.