The influence of verbal descriptions and delay on face identification in children and adults.

Verbal descriptions of unfamiliar faces have been found to impair later identification of these faces in adults, a phenomenon known as the “verbal overshadowing effect (VO)” (Schooler & Englster-Schooler, 1990).

In spite of a large body of literature on the suggestibility of children testimony, only one study has examined whether descriptions also impaired children’s identification abilities in a single group of children (8-9 years old) and no evidence of VO was found (Memon & Rose, 2002). However, the method might not have been appropriate to observe this effect as the description and the control tasks were not completed immediately but after a 24h delay that has sometimes been associated to a release of the VO effect (e.g. Schooler & Englster-Schooler, 1990; Finger & Pezdek, 1999).

The aim of this experiment was to examine the influence of verbal descriptions and delay on face identification in several groups of children (7-8, 10-11, 13-14 years old) and adults when assigned either to “No delay”, “Post description delay” or “Post encoding delay” condition. The quality and influence of descriptors across the ages were also examined.