Here’s a short snippet of audio which people hear in different ways.
What do you think – does he say ‘I can’ or ‘I can’t’?
Why not take a straw poll of your friends and colleagues to see what they think – then read on for a scientific perspective!
fun
An explosive murder confession – or a dodgy transcription?
17 March 2015
Listen to these two snippets of muttered self-talk, then read on to see how a transcript can prime journalists’ perception.
If you are among the few who have not already heard the media’s interpretation of this audio, you’ll find it useful if you write down what you hear now, before reading on – and if you have a moment, I would love to be told your perception – you can send a message here.
Why it is not safe to ask the jury to evaluate indistinct recordings
Here is a truly hilarious act by Peter Kay – which also carries a deeper message in relation to forensic recordings. As you are ‘begging for birdseed’, note how real the suggested interpretations sound, even when you know they cannot possibly be correct (or do you?).
Christopher Pyne: the c-word or the g-word?
16 May 2014
Social media claims Christopher Pyne dropped the ‘C’ word in parliament on Wednesday, but he says the word was ‘grub’. (SMH)
Huge interest the last day or two here in Oz as to whether Christopher Pyne, a right-wing politician, swore at a fellow politician in parliament.
What did Oscar Pistorius really say?
10 April 2014
With so many responding to media invitations to form subjective opinions as to whether Oscar Pistorius’ emotion is genuine, are we missing factual errors in the reporting of what he is actually saying? Could scientific analysis help here?
Why comparing alternative transcripts doesn’t necessarily yield the truth of what was said
You may have seen some rather hilarious ‘alternative lyrics’ for Carl Orff’s famous O Fortuna that are circulating on the internet. As with many forms of word play, these are not only entertaining but also give some important insights regarding language and speech – and, in this case, into the effect of priming on evaluation of forensic transcripts.
A new take on satanic messages
You’ve probably heard of the concerns voiced in the 1980s that rock bands could corrupt youth, by recording their songs so that if you played them backwards, the words would turn into a message from satan.
The PACT experiments
The PACT experiments represent a more commonplace – and more disturbing – problem with the treatment of forensic transcription than the crisis call experiment. Again they use audio from a real murder trial. If you have read the case study, you’ll recognise this story. Here we go into a bit more detail on the experimental results than in the case study itself.
The crisis call experiment
Here’s an experiment shows the dangers of leaving the task of evaluating the transcript of a ‘disputed utterance’ to the jury.
The story
Early one morning, a young man returned home from his paper round. About twenty minutes later, he made a crisis call (emergency call) reporting his entire family were lying dead in the house.
1958 priming experiment
Priming, in relation to speech, is the tendency of the human ear to hear words that have been suggested, either explicitly or by context – even though there may little or no acoustic evidence for those words.