Verbal Overshadowing and Face Recognition in Young and Old Adults

Abstract

Verbal overshadowing has been found to disrupt recognition accuracy when hard-to-describe stimuli are used. The current study replicates previous research on verbal overshadowing with younger people and extends this research into an older population to examine the possible link between verbal expertise and verbal overshadowing. It was hypothesized that older adults with higher verbal expertise would not suffer the effects of verbal overshadowing to the same degree as younger adults. The data supported past findings that verbal overshadowing decreases recognition accuracy in younger adults, and also suggested that older adults were less affected by verbal overshadowing effects than younger adults.