Recognition and description of singing voices: The impact of verbal overshadowing

Verbalizing sound quality of individual music performers presents a challenge to musicians and pedagogues in describing a complex aural phenomenon. Verbal overshadowing (VO) is well documented in psychological literature and can occur when we use words to describe sensory experiences (such as seeing, tasting or hearing). The verbal description impairs later recall of the sensory experience and individuals are less able to identify the original from a line-up of similar stimuli. This study investigated the impact of verbal description on listeners’ recognition accuracy and confidence of classical singing voices. It also assessed the scope and limitations of the terms used to describe singers’ sound. Five soprano singers performed an excerpt of Caro mio ben twice for a recording. Listeners (n = 50) heard a single singer performing the first take of Caro mio ben, which they either described in words, or just remembered. Listeners were later asked to identify the voice from a homogenous line-up of the five singers. Providing a verbal description reduced listeners’ identification accuracy of target voice, but did not reduce listeners’ confidence in their decisions. There was a reliable verbal overshadowing effect and results suggest that verbalization of singing voices is problematic and limits listeners’ ability to remember a singer’s unique sound quality.