In Experiment 1, subjects witnessed a mock crime either visually or both auditorily and visually. A visual lineup was conducted with either a guilty or an innocent suspect present. Identification accuracy of visual-only versus auditory-visual witnessed did not differ, although the diagnosticity ratio for the visual-only condition was more than twice as large. Thus, there was only limited support for auditory information interfering with encoding visual information. In Experiment 2, subjects witnessed a mock crime either auditorily or both auditorily and visually. A voice lineup was conducted with either a guilty or an innocent suspect present. Consistent with Yarmey’s (1986) prediction that visual information can interfere with encoding auditory information, guilty-suspect identification was significantly higher in the auditory-only condition.
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Social Psychology in 1993, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1207/s15324834basp1402_3.