The verbal overshadowing effect refers to the phenomenon that the verbal description of a past complex stimulus impairs its subsequent recognition. Theoretical explanations range from interference between different mental representations to the activation of different processing orientations or a provoked shift in the recognition criterion. In our study, 61 participants with aphantasia (= lack of mental imagery) and 70 controls participated in a verbal overshadowing paradigm. The verbal overshadowing effect did not occur in people with aphantasia, although the effect was replicated in controls. We speculate that this is either due to the lack of visual representations in people with aphantasia that verbal descriptions could interfere with, or to the absence of a shift in processing orientation during verbalisation. To rule out criterion-based explanations, further research is needed to distinguish between discriminability and response bias in people with aphantasia. Finally, data indicated that the verbal overshadowing effect may even be reversed in individuals with aphantasia, partly due to a lower memory performance in the no verbalisation condition. Effects of further variables are discussed, such as mental strategies, memory confidence, and difficulty, quantity and quality of verbalisation.

中文翻译：

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失语症中没有言语遮蔽：视觉意象在言语遮蔽效应中的作用

言语遮蔽效应是指对过去的复杂刺激的言语描述损害了其随后的认知的现象。理论解释的范围从不同心理表征之间的干扰到不同处理方向的激活或识别标准的引发变化。在我们的研究中，61 名患有失语症（即缺乏心理意象）的参与者和 70 名对照者参与了语言遮蔽范例。尽管言语遮蔽效应在失语症患者中并未出现，但在对照组中也出现了这种效应。我们推测，这要么是由于失语症患者缺乏口头描述可能干扰的视觉表征，要么是由于言语表达过程中处理方向没有转变。为了排除基于标准的解释，需要进一步研究来区分失语症患者的可辨别性和反应偏差。最后，数据表明，言语遮蔽效应甚至可能在失语症患者中逆转，部分原因是无言语条件下的记忆表现较低。讨论了其他变量的影响，例如心理策略、记忆信心以及言语的难度、数量和质量。