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memory
Describing a face makes you worse at identifying it.
A 1990 study found that participants who wrote a verbal description of a face were significantly less likely to correctly pick it out of a lineup later.
The process of describing features shifts your brain from holistic facial recognition to a detail-oriented, analytical mode. This verbal interference impairs your ability to access the original, holistic mental image of the face.
Words can distort the memory they attempt to preserve.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Schooler and Engstler-Schooler, 1990, Cognitive Psychology
- What the check found
- The 1990 paper by Schooler and Engstler-Schooler is the foundational study for the verbal overshadowing effect in face recognition.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.