Preliminary investigation of speaker height and weight identification

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if listeners were capable of speaker height and weight identification from recorded speech samples of speakers' voices. A standard prose passage was recorded by 30 speakers, 15 females and 15 males. A master tape containing the randomly arranged recorded readings of all speakers was played to a group of 30 subjects. All subjects participated in two experimental sessions. In one session they were asked to determine the height of each speaker and in another session weight judgments were made. The order of presentation of the two experimental tasks was randomized so that 15 subjects made height judgments first and 15 subjects made weight judgments first. A multiple‐choice response sheet containing four choices for height and weight judgments for each speaker was provided. In addition, subjects were also asked to indicate the confidence of their decisions on a seven‐point rating scale, and to describe the criteria upon which they based their decisions. Results indicate that (1) for both order groups, subjects were capable, with better than chance‐guessing accuracy, of correctly identifying the heights and weights of speakers when presented with only recorded speech samples and (2) subjects exhibited slightly greater accuracy in identifying speaker weights than heights, regardless of the order in which they were exposed to the two kinds of identification tasks. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.