Forensic reference data on articulation rate in German

Abstract 

Articulation rate (AR) is one of the parameters used in forensic voice comparisons for the purpose of providing evidence for or against speaker identity, yet at present multi-speaker studies on this parameter are very rare. In order to alleviate this situation AR was measured in the speech of 100 German-speaking male subjects. Histograms were provided from which the forensic expert can infer the percentages of different AR values in the population. Separate histograms were provided for mean AR and standard deviation of AR. It was also found that mean AR is significantly higher in read than spontaneous speech and that AR standard deviation is significantly smaller in read than spontaneous speech, although many individual speakers deviate from this general pattern.

Keywords: Forensic speaker identification, Articulation rate, German language, Reading, Spontaneous speech