Words Get in the Way
Talk is cheap, but it can tax your memory
By Bruce Bower
Law-enforcement officials typically solicit descriptions of criminals from eyewitnesses, often just after an offense has occurred. It stands to reason that thorough accounts by those who saw what happened will help investigators round up the likeliest suspects. Eyewitnesses can then pick the criminals out of a lineup. When crime-scene interviewing had its first brush with memory research in 1990, however, the results proved disturbing. A series of laboratory studies found that memories for a mock criminal’s face were much poorer among eyewitnesses who had described what the perpetrator looked like shortly after seeing him, compared with those who hadn’t.
Psychologist Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of Pittsburgh, who directed the studies, dubbed this effect “verbal overshadowing of visual memories.” His paper’s subtitle put it more bluntly: “Some things are better left unsaid.”