THE EFFECTS OF WHISPERS, VOICE-SAMPLE DURATION, AND VOICE DISTINCTIVENESS ON CRIMINAL SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION

A total of 156 introductory psychology students heard a taped voice of a mock kidnapper for either 30 seconds or 8 minutes. The kidnapper ha d either a distinctive voice or a non-distinctive voice, and spoke eit her in a whisper or in a normal tone of voice. Voice identification fr om six-person, tape-recorded lineups was tested 2 days later. Particip ants who initially heard the perpetrator speak in a normal tone were t ested with normal tone lineups. Participants who initially heard the p erpetrator speak in a whisper were tested either with whispered lineup s or normal tone lineups. Results showed that identification performan ce was superior with longer voice-sample durations. Voice disguise thr ough whispering, distinctiveness of suspect's voice, and changes in to ne of voice from initial hearing and lineup test significantly influen ced identification performance on both suspect-present and suspect-abs ent lineups. Small but significant accuracy-confidence correlations we re found in both suspect-present and suspect-absent lineups. Duration estimations of the length of the speaker's voice-sample were over-esti mated, particularly for the short 30-second voice sample.