Towards a screening test for earwitnesses

Investigating the individual voice recognition skills of lay listeners

Authors

  • Sascha Schäfer University of York
  • Paul Foulkes University of York

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.25638

Keywords:

(lay) speaker recognition, earwitness testimony, super recognisers, estimator variables, voice parades

Abstract

The present study explores the feasibility of a screening test for earwitnesses. The underlying assumption is that lay listeners differ in their voice-processing capabilities and might consequently not be equally suited for a standardised voice parade. One hundred British participants took part in an online AX discrimination task with the aim of obtaining a representative sample of the population. For the stimuli, two 10s-long recordings were taken from 48 speakers of the DyViS corpus. Participants differed markedly in recognition accuracy (mean = 75%, range = 50–93.8%). Two potential ‘super recognisers’ were identified as well as four participants at the opposite end of the spectrum. The test serves to establish a baseline for more complex investigations of witness-dependent estimator variables.

Author Biographies

  • Sascha Schäfer, University of York

    Sascha Schäfer is conducting PhD research at the University of York, in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science. His research explores individual differences in the voice-processing capabilities of lay listeners with a particular focus on earwitnesses.

  • Paul Foulkes, University of York

    Paul Foulkes is a Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. His interests are mainly in forensic speech science, sociophonetics and child language development. He has conducted casework in forensic speech science in the UK, Ghana, New Zealand and Sweden.

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Cases

R v. Flynn & St John [2008] EWCA Crim 970.

Thornton v. Northern Ireland Housing Executive [2010] NIQB 4.

Published

2023-12-19

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Schäfer, S., & Foulkes, P. (2023). Towards a screening test for earwitnesses: Investigating the individual voice recognition skills of lay listeners. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 30(2), 234-267. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.25638