Elsevier

Science & Justice

Volume 49, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 298-308
Science & Justice

Forensic voice comparison and the paradigm shift

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2009.09.002Get rights and content

Abstract

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the forensic comparison sciences. The new paradigm can be characterised as quantitative data-based implementation of the likelihood-ratio framework with quantitative evaluation of the reliability of results. The new paradigm was widely adopted for DNA profile comparison in the 1990s, and is gradually spreading to other branches of forensic science, including forensic voice comparison. The present paper first describes the new paradigm, then describes the history of its adoption for forensic voice comparison over approximately the last decade. The paradigm shift is incomplete and those working in the new paradigm still represent a minority within the forensic–voice-comparison community.

Section snippets

A paradigm shift

Today we are in the midst of what Saks and Koehler [1] have called a paradigm shift in the evaluation and presentation of evidence in the forensic sciences which deal with the comparison of the quantifiable properties of objects of known and questioned origin, e.g., DNA profiles, finger marks, hairs, fibres, glass fragments, tool marks, handwriting, and voice recordings. Saks and Koehler point out that they “use the notion of paradigm shift not as a literal application of Thomas Kuhn's concept

Approaches to forensic voice comparison

Historically it is possible to identify at least four different approaches to forensic voice comparison: auditory, spectrographic, acoustic–phonetic, and automatic. Of these it is the latter two which are most appropriate for use in the new paradigm. For simplicity of exposition the four approaches will be treated as discrete, but in practice it has not been uncommon for aspects of two approaches to be combined, e.g., auditory–spectrographic and auditory–acoustic–phonetic. The description of

Conclusion

Based on my interpretation of the paradigm shift in forensic comparison science first described by Saks and Koehler [1], the new paradigm can be characterised as quantitative data-based implementation of the likelihood-ratio framework with quantitative evaluation of the reliability of the strengths of evidence produced. The new paradigm was widely adopted for forensic DNA comparison in the 1990s, and over approximately the last decade has begun to make inroads into the field of forensic voice

Acknowledgments

The writing of this paper was supported financially by Australian Research Council Discovery Grant No. DP0774115. Thanks to Didier Meuwley, Philp Rose, Yuko Kinoshita, Michael Jessen, Cuiling Zhang and two anonymous reviewers for discussion of ideas and comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  • Cited by (0)

    This is a revised version of an invited presentation given at the 2nd International Conference on Evidence Law and Forensic Science, Beijing, China, 25–26 July, 2009.

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