Recognition and discrimination of unfamiliar male and female voices

What is it about?

The aim of this study was to examine the ability to identify voices of unfamiliar people. In experiment 1, participants were tested in their ability to recognize the voice of unfamiliar man or woman in a target-present or target-absent earwitness identification line-up. Results showed that subjects generally matched 83.11% when the target voice was present and made 56.45% false alarms when it was missing. Discrimination was different from chance and subjects used liberal response criteria. In experiment 2, men and women tried to identify the same voices as in the previous experiment. Between stimulus presentation and the recognition task, subjects listened instrumental music for 2.38 minutes, with the purpose to hinder the possibility of the voice remaining active in the working memory. Results showed that the ability of men and women to identify an unfamiliar voice was null, in both cases with liberal response criterion. Men matched 12.06%, with 65.51% false alarms, and women 25.80% and 56.45% respectively.

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Photo by Anthony Roberts on Unsplash

Photo by Anthony Roberts on Unsplash

Why is it important?

There were no differences in the ability to identify male and female voices, although women tend to indicate that the voice is present more than man even though no target voice was present.