{"id":777,"date":"2019-08-30T15:04:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T19:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=777"},"modified":"2022-03-04T16:32:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T20:32:41","slug":"verbal-overshadowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/verbal-overshadowing\/","title":{"rendered":"Verbal Overshadowing: How Words Confuse Your Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What do you do when you want to remember something you see? Do you write it down? Describe it to someone else? Both these tactics can lead to verbal overshadowing…and that’s a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verbal overshadowing <\/strong>is the tendency of language to diminish your memory of visual information. It’s a phenomenon where explaining your thought processes make you worse at whatever you’re trying to explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn why verbal overshadowing is bad and what you can do instead to remember visual information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Problem With <\/strong>Verbal Overshadowing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Verbal overshadowing is a type of rationalization. Sometimes, our rationalizations are just inaccurate. Other times, they actually harm our ability to make smart decisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our rational minds (and verbal overshadowing in particular) can overpower our unconscious minds, to our detriment. Explaining our processes can make us worse at whatever we\u2019re trying to explain.<\/strong> Attempting to explain the mysterious takes away some of the mystery\u2019s power. This is verbal overshadowing.
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Insight, another way of thinking about snap judgments, is fragile. We think of insight like a lightbulb, but it\u2019s more like a candle in danger of being snuffed out by one gentle sigh. Verbal overshadowing happens when we snuff out the candle of insight by talking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Language and Face Recognition<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Language is the primary tool of the rational mind. Using language (and therefore activating our rational minds) when a task is better completed by the unconscious mind<\/a> can snuff out insights, leading to verbal overshadowing.
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Let’s look at an example of verbal overshadowing: when we recognize someone, that recognition comes from our unconscious. We\u2019re not consciously looking at the person\u2019s eyes, nose, or hair, and comparing those features to a mental list of the eyes and noses and hair of people we know. Recognition is often instant. Either you recognize someone or you don\u2019t.
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Let\u2019s see what happens when we try to turn this into a conscious process. Think about any stranger you saw today, maybe the barista who made your morning coffee.
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Suppose someone asked you to describe him or her in as much detail as possible, including facial features, hair color, clothing, and jewelry. (This is the \u201cverbal\u201d element of verbal overshadowing.)
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If you had to pick this person out of a lineup, you\u2019d do much worse after<\/em> describing him or her than before. The act of describing erases the image from your mind by pulling it forward from the unconscious to the conscious.<\/strong>
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This is verbal overshadowing. Instead of remembering what you saw<\/em>, you\u2019re remembering your description, which, due to the limits of language, will always be less accurate than your visual memory. When you explain yourself, you override what you\u2019re explaining. Verbal overshadowing is a problem.
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Language and Insight Puzzles<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Verbal overshadowing also hurts our ability to solve insight puzzles.
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There are two general kinds of puzzles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n