The ability of expert witnesses to identify voices: a comparison between trained and untrained listerners

Abstract

This study reports the results of a speaker identification experiment in which the performance of phonetic expert witnesses and untrained listeners was compared. In a direct identification task participants from both groups were asked to identify the voice of a target speaker among five foils. Results showed that expert witnesses, who were experienced in speaker identification, performed significantly better than untrained listeners, who had no experience in phonetic speaker identification.