Verbalization effects in facial composite production

Describing a person's face can temporarily interfere with face recognition ability. We explored whether this so-called ‘verbal overshadowing effect’ (VOE) might interfere with the construction of a traditional facial composite, a face produced by the selection of individual features: hair, eyes, mouth, etc. Participants looked at an unfamiliar target and two days later constructed a single composite after (a) describing the face (verbal no-delay), (b) without describing (no-description) or (c) 30 minutes after describing (verbal delay). Composite quality was overall of poor quality but it was worse in the verbal no-delay group relative to the no-description group, suggesting the involvement of a VOE, but equivalent between verbal delay and no-description, suggesting the presence of a ‘release’ from overshadowing. The data support the revised ‘transfer inappropriate retrieval’ explanation of the VOE, and suggest that witnesses to real crimes should not proceed directly from face description to feature sele...