Finger K, Pezdek K
Department of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, California 91711-3955, USA.
J Appl Psychol. 1999 Jun;84(3):340-8. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.84.3.340.
Three experiments tested the effect of verbal description on face identification accuracy. Based on verbal overshadowing research, it was predicted that enhancing verbal description of a face would reduce subsequent face identification accuracy. Experiment 1 tested and confirmed this hypothesis using the cognitive interview to enhance verbal description; face identification accuracy was reduced significantly following the cognitive interview, compared with a standard police interview. Experiments 2 and 3 tested and confirmed the hypothesis that verbal overshadowing would be reduced when a delay is inserted between verbal description and face identification, hence resulting in "release from verbal overshadowing." These results suggest that in the verbal overshadowing task, the verbal description does not overwrite the visually based representation of the face in memory but rather makes it less accessible at the time of face identification. The cognitive interview reduces face identification accuracy only when the identification follows description immediately--a rare situation in real criminal cases.
三项实验测试了言语描述对人脸识别准确性的影响。基于言语遮蔽研究，预计增强对人脸的言语描述会降低后续人脸识别的准确性。实验1使用认知访谈来增强言语描述，对这一假设进行了测试并得到证实；与标准的警方访谈相比，在认知访谈后，人脸识别的准确性显著降低。实验2和实验3测试并证实了以下假设：当在言语描述与人脸识别之间插入延迟时，言语遮蔽会减少，从而导致“从言语遮蔽中释放”。这些结果表明，在言语遮蔽任务中，言语描述不会覆盖记忆中基于视觉的人脸表征，而是在人脸识别时使其较难获取。认知访谈只有在识别紧接着描述进行时才会降低人脸识别的准确性——这在真实刑事案件中是一种罕见的情况。
