Abstract
Two hundred ten male and female introductory psychology students served as subjects in a simulated abduction study purportedly investigating voice identification. The subjects listened to a 72-sec tape recording of either a male or a female abductor’s voice. The tape was played for one massed trial or was given in two distributed exposure trials of 36 sec each or three distributed exposure trials of 24 sec each. Each of the distributed exposure trials was separated by a 5-min intertrial interval. The subjects were asked to estimate the total amount of time the abductor’s voice was heard and the duration of the intertrial interval immediately, 1 day, or 1 week after presentation. The results indicated that total duration was significantly overestimated, especially by the subjects given repeated exposures to the target voice. Intertrial intervals were either accurately estimated or slightly underestimated. No significant main effects were found for delay of testing, sex of subjects, or sex of abductor. The results are discussed in terms of their forensic relevance.
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This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Claudia Turowski for testing subjects.
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Yarmey, A.D., Matthys, E. Retrospective duration estimates of an abductor’s speech. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 28, 231–234 (1990). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334012
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334012