Voice identification by human listeners: On earwitness reliability

This paper reviews what is currently known about voice identification by human listeners. Our own experimental data from a four-year research program into this topic is used to elucidate, support, and in some cases to contradict published work into the effects on voice identification of such factors as speech sample size and quality, voice disguise, delay in holding voice identification sessions, incidental as opposed to intentional memory for voices, the effects of the age of the witness, training in specific modes of encoding voices, and the relationship between objective accuracy and subjective feelings of certainty of correctness. It is concluded that the caution and suspicion currently accorded to visual identification must be extended also, and perhaps more so, to voice identification.Part of the research discussed in this paper was conducted under the auspices of a grant from the British Home Office to the author and Ray Bull. The author would like to thank the issue editor for his very useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and Harriet Rathborn for running many of the experiments.