Identifying unfamiliar voices: the influence of sample duration and parade size.

Abstract

Voice identification parades can be unreliable due to the error-prone nature of earwitness responses. Home Office guidelines (2003) recommend that voice parades should consist of nine-voices, each played for 60-seconds. This makes parades resource-consuming to construct. In the present paper we conducted two experiments to see if voice parade procedures could be simplified. In Experiment 1, we investigated if reducing the duration of the voice samples on a nine-voice parade would negatively affect performance. In Experiment 2, we first explored if the same sample duration conditions used in Experiment 1 would lead to different outcomes if a six-voice parade were used. Following this, we investigated if there were any difference in identification performance based solely on whether a nine-voice (Experiment 1) or six-voice (Experiment 2) parade was used. Overall, the results suggest that voice durations can be safely reduced without disrupting listener performance. Performance on target-absent parades – which simulate an innocent suspect being apprehended – were at chance-levels in both parade sizes, but the increased number of foils in the nine-voice parade offers increased protection to an innocent suspect by virtue of statistical probability. Thus, we argue that the Home Office guidelines recommending a parade with nine-voices should be maintained.