Verbal overshadowing: A sound theory in voice recognition?

Abstract

Verbal overshadowing is the impairment of a person's recognition ability as a result of generating a verbal description. Two experiments involving 169 participants examined the effects of verbal overshadowing, race of voice (own/other) and cognitive style (holistic/analytic) on voice recognition. In Experiment 1, participants heard a recorded voice (own- or other-race) saying a short phrase. After completing a cognitive style analysis and 15-minute filler task, the verbalisation group gave a written description of the voice while the control group did a filler task. Participants then attempted to identify the voice from a 6-voice lineup tape. Experiment 2 manipulated the similarity of the own-race voices by using telephone recordings of the voices, and the encoding-test similarities of the stimuli by using different phrases at encoding and test. Results showed a strong own-race bias with superior own-race voice recognition and no verbal overshadowing in Experiment 1, and a strong verbal overshadowing effect in Experiment 2. Cognitive style was predictive of voice identification in both experiments. Results are discussed with reference to the own-race bias, cognitive style and encoding-test similarity of the stimulus in verbal overshadowing.