Psychological science
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Recognition performance is impaired when people are required to provide a verbal description of a complex stimulus (i.e., verbal-overshadowing effect), such as the face of the perpetrator in a simulated robbery. A shift in the processing operations that support successful face recognition is believed to underlie this effect. Specifically, when participants shift from a global to a local processing orientation, face recognition is impaired. ⋯ Rather, face recognition can be disrupted by a task (i.e., letter identification) that triggers the activation of a local processing orientation. Conversely, the activation of a global processing orientation can enhance the accuracy offace recognition. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for recent treatments of verbal overshadowing and memory function are considered.