IJSLL (print) issn 1748-8885 IJSLL (online) issn 1748-8893 The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law doi : 10.1558/ijsll.v17i2.179 IJSLL vol 17.2 2010 179–200 ©2010, equinox publishing Article The inluence of signal complexity on speaker identiication Kyna Sherman Betancourt and Ruth Huntley Bahr Abstract Multiple factors may afect a listener’s ability to identify a particular voice. For exam- ple, speaker efects such as language and dialect have been shown to negatively impact speaker identiication accuracy (Bahr and Frisch 2002, Doty 1998). Mechanical efects such as communication channel (i.e. cell phone, land line) have also been shown to negatively impact voice identiication (Künzel 2001). However, the contribution of these factors to signal complexity as a whole has not been well-deined. herefore, it is the purpose of this investigation to assess the efect of signal complexity on speaker identiication. A paired comparison listening task was used to evaluate monolingual listeners’ performance when channel (lab quality, landline phone and cell phone transmissions), language (English vs. Spanish), and dialect (diferent dialects of Span- ish) were varied. Accuracy, reaction time, and d-prime scores were use to measure the efect of signal complexity on speaker identiication accuracy. Results indicated that listeners were less accurate when the signal was most complex. hese indings were across all three measures. he role of signal complexity in the forensic speaker identiication process will be described. keywords forensic speaker discrimination; signal complexity; telephone transmission; mobile phone transmission; dialectology Ailiations Both authors: University of South Florida, USA email: kfasnach@mail.usf.edu A-1 A-2 A-3 A-4 A-5 A-6 A-7 A-8 A-9 A-10 A-11 A-12 A-13 A-14 A-15 A-16 A-17 A-18 A-19 A-20 A-21 A-22 B-1 B-2 B-3 First Proofs Wednesday, December 22 2010