Verbal overshadowing in voice recognition

An experiment examined the influence of three factors on the accuracy and confidence in voice identifications from a voice-lineup. In a factorial design, participants either encoded the original voice deliberately or were exposed incidentally, either heard a normal voice, or a voice recorded through a telephone, and either described a target voice prior to the lineup or they did not. The method of encoding had no impact on performance, whilst hearing a telephone voice reduced confidence without impairing accuracy. Providing a verbal description impaired subsequent identification accuracy (a verbal overshadowing effect), without reducing confidence. Thus, these data demonstrate that verbal overshadowing can occur in voice recognition, and also provide another dissociation between confidence and performance. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.