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‘Earwitness’ voice recognition: Factors affecting accuracy and impact on jurors
Author(s) -
van Wallendael Lori R.,
Surace Amy,
Parsons Deborah Hall,
Brown Melissa
Publication year - 1994
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.2350080705
Subject(s) - psychology , witness , social psychology , audiology , eyewitness identification , confidence interval , identification (biology) , significant difference , developmental psychology , statistics , linguistics , medicine , philosophy , mathematics , database , relation (database) , computer science , botany , biology
Two studies were conducted examining voice recognition testimony and its impact on jurors. In the first experiment, subjects listened to a tape recording of a brief sales pitch. After a retention interval of either 0, 7 or 14 days, subjects were unexpectedly asked to pick the salesperson's voice out of a five‐voice taped lineup. Retention interval did not have a significant effect on hit rates or false alarms. Accuracy and pre‐lineup confidence were not significantly correlated, although accuracy was related to post‐lineup willingness to testify. In the second experiment, undergraduate subjects were asked to read a summary of a trial, describing a situation similar to that studied in experiment 1; the independent variables were the presence of an earwitness, the gender and confidence of the earwitness, and the retention interval. Only the presence of an earwitness had a significant main effect upon mock jurors' verdicts. However, there was a significant interaction between witness confidence and witness gender when an earwitness identification was presented.