Verbal overshadowing is the later disruption of recognition memory resulting from prior verbal recall of the memory. Cognitive psychologists in the field of criminal justice have studied the effect since 1990 due to its ramifications in eyewitness testimony. Because of its short history of research, the effects of verbal overshadowing in the classroom, if any, are relatively unknown. Unobserved and unnamed in the field of criminal justice until 1990, the effect is possibly unobserved in the classroom, yet affects some students' performance. If so, not only are its effects receiving misappropriated blame, but the effect results in challenging the teaching strategy that verbalizing while learning always helps learning. Due to this study, research into verbal overshadowing was extended to the field of education for the express purpose of beginning to understand if and how verbal overshadowing affects learning by postsecondary adult students. The research protocol was similar, for the most part, to the 2004 paradigm of Ryan and Schooler who studied the effect during retrieval of analogies. In this study, participants read a section of text describing difficult-to-describe concepts, recalled what was read verbally (the experimental group) or silently (the control group), then engaged a multiple-choice posttest. A t test for comparison of the two groups and an analysis of covariance testing for the effect of linguistic skill both resulted in insignificant findings, though the experimental group showed a modest increase. While the statistical tests proved insignificant, some noteworthy outcomes were achieved. Most significantly, a teaching strategy for difficult-to-describe ideas that accounts for the overshadowing effect resulted. The strategy prescribes teachers to allow enough time for the right cerebral hemisphere to complete its processes, correct students' errors early, and ensure quality assessment management.
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