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Earwitness memory: distortions for voice pitch and speaking rate
Author(s) -
Mullennix John W.,
Stern Steven E.,
Grounds Benjamin,
Kalas Rob,
Flaherty Mary,
Kowalok Sara,
May Eric,
Tessmer Brian
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1566
Subject(s) - psychology , suspect , distortion (music) , speech recognition , contrast (vision) , audiology , acoustics , computer science , telecommunications , physics , artificial intelligence , medicine , amplifier , criminology , bandwidth (computing)
In two experiments, memory distortions for voice pitch and speaking rate were examined. In both experiments, a significant distortion effect for voice pitch was observed, with listeners biased towards selecting voices lower in pitch than low‐pitch targets and selecting voices higher in pitch than high‐pitch targets. In contrast, for speaking rate there was little evidence for the production of memory distortions. The results are discussed in terms of transient surface properties of speech and how transience may be a factor in producing distortions. The results have implications for how errors arise during earwitness testimony for a suspect's voice. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.