The proposed investigation comprises two stages. As a first step, a survey will be conducted among international forensic experts with questions specifically related to voice quality (VQ). This survey is intended to inform current practices in the assessment of VQ and to detect issues and difficulties, as found in real casework. In a second step, different pilot experiments will be tested, and eventually a simplified computer-based perceptual protocol for the evaluation of VQ will be proposed. The main goal is to provide a simplified, yet reliable and validated, perceptual protocol that could be used by the international community of forensic phoneticians when they have to describe a speaker in terms of his/her VQ, and/or when required to compare two or more voices using an auditory approach.
Name of Principal Applicant:
Dr. Eugenia San Segundo Fernández
Name(s) of Other Applicants:
Prof. Dr. Anders Erikssson
Prof. Dr. Plinio Barbosa