Concurrent explanations can enhance visual decision making

•Written explanations enhanced the judgments of visual targets.•Earlier findings and theoretical notions suggested an opposite effect.•Better information acquisition was related to the enhanced judgments.•Adequate vocabulary and analytical task are prerequisites for the effect.

The verbalization of one's thoughts has been shown to impair judgment and decision making in some cases, particularly when targets are perceptual. This finding has been attributed to the fact that non-verbal processes are sometimes difficult to verbalize, which may cause a shift in processing that is maladaptive to the task. The study shows that concurrent written explanations can also enhance judgment and decision making in certain visual choice tasks. This finding suggests that the effect of verbalization on perceptual tasks is not dependent on whether the targets of the judgment are verbal or perceptual but rather on whether there is adequate vocabulary to execute the task and whether the task benefits from a more analytic approach.