Summary: Voices effect perceptions of grief, with those judged as “lower position” being considered more likely to commit atrocities. Researchers compared voices from 10 English accents to cultural traits and the likelihood of some behaviors, including crimes, in responses from 180 participants.
The findings show a strong relationship between perceived social standing and criminality, with working-class tones often linked to negative conclusions. The study emphasizes the need to be aware of accent-based prejudices in the justice system because these prejudices could lead to bias and weak legal judgments. Through innovative voice evidence guidelines, efforts are being made to combat these biases.
Important Facts:
- English Stereotypes: Lower-status tones are associated with higher perceived crime.
- Social Status Link: Accent perceptions outweigh assumptions about generosity or faith in violence.
- Justice Impact: Scientists recommend pre-testing to screen for speech discrimination in lawful situations.
Origin: Boundaries
What you say and how you speak can be said a bit about you, but what others believe may not be accurate.
No voice is superior to any other, but accents are used as a tool for identifying and stereotyping social groups. In the justice system, these highlight stereotypes had effect perceptions of grief, leading to bias.
Researchers who worked on the Improving Voice Identification Procedures job tested the participants ‘ views of ten different voices that were heard in the UK to determine this.
They discovered that those with lower-status tones were thought to be more likely to have committed crimes.  ,
” We found a strong connection between perceived social position and the perceived likelihood of committing atrocities”, said Alice Paver of the University of Cambridge, lead author of the study in , Frontiers in Communication.
” This website was more significant than how trustworthy, form, or trustworthy someone was perceived.” This shows that perceived social class, as judged from a speaker’s voice, is an important indicator of UK viewers ‘ expectations about behaviour, and this might have serious repercussions in the legal fairness system” . ,
Anti-social voices?  ,
Dr. David Wright, Professor Natalie Braber, and Dr. Nikolas Pautz of Nottingham Trent University were the researchers who recruited 180 people from all over the UK and assigned them to one of two studies.
The first asked participants to level voices based on 10 cultural characteristics, while the second asked them to rate how good they had engaged in 10 crimes and social behavior, such as defending a partner who has been harassed or having cheated on their partner.  ,
The scientists created 30-second collages from recordings of men speaking English in 10 accents: Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newcastle, and Standard Southern British English ( SSBE ).
To limit outside affects, the scientists removed titles and standardized the collages for speed, angle, and power of conversation.
Phoneticians even checked the examples to make sure they properly reflected how most folks with these voices speak.  ,
The scientists finally analyzed the actions of the participants to look for trends. They found two main clusters of traits, which they named’ solidarity’ — traits like kindness — over’ status’ — traits like wealth — as well as two small clusters, labelled’ confident’ and ‘ working class’.
The final cluster was the exact opposite of the” status” cluster. SSBE was most remarkably rated on’ standing’ traits, as well as the’ confident’ swarm, and the lowest rated in the’ working class ‘ cluster.  ,
All the crimes, except for sexual assault, clustered together. The more a given accent was rated for its status, the less it was rated for its criminal behavior. Sexual assault was a group of unintended behaviors that weren’t necessarily considered to be illegal, so the authors labeled this group of behaviors as “morally bad.”
The London and Liverpool speakers rated as likely, and the Glasgow and Belfast speakers as unlikely, to display morally bad behaviors.  ,
However, while participants might assume someone is unlikely to commit a crime based on their accent, that assumption may not imply positive, prosocial behavior. For instance, the SSBE speaker, unlike the Liverpool speaker, was considered less likely to defend a victim of harassment.  ,
” We didn’t see a strong link between how criminal someone’s voice sounded, and how kind or trustworthy they sounded”, said Paver.
” Instead, there was a much more important link between how criminal a voice sounds and how working-class a voice sounds”.  ,  ,
Additionally, although the SSBE accent was rated less likely to have committed most crimes, that didn’t apply to the sexual assault.
This could indicate that, in contrast to other forms of crime, the perception of those who commit sexual assault has changed.  ,
Talking sense ,
The authors argued that more research, including more voices, especially those of women, and research into how accent strength affects assumptions, is required to get a fuller understanding of accent biases.
Additionally, they couldn’t rule out that vocal characteristics they couldn’t control for might have influenced their participants ‘ judgements.  ,
Paver stated that the team is currently creating new rules for voice line-up implementation.
” We support using pre-testing to determine voice bias.” We also urge everyone who uses voice-based bias to make decisions in the criminal justice system.
” These stereotypes could have real-life legal consequences. ”  ,
About this news from psychology research
Author: Angharad Brewer Gillham
Source: Frontiers
Contact: Angharad Brewer Gillham – Frontiers
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
By Alice Paver and al.,” Stéréotyped accent judgments in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and behaviors. Frontiers in Communication
Abstract
Stereotypical accent evaluations in forensic settings: listener perceptions of social characteristics and behavior patterns
The findings of a multidisciplinary and cross-institutional Economic and Social Research Council ( ESRC ) funded project called” Improving Voice Identification Procedures” ( IVIP ) are presented in this paper.
People have stereotypes about particular accents, and those judgments may be applied to the legal system.
This study examines the relationship between ratings for characteristics and the likelihood of acting in certain criminal and non-criminal ways in light of the potential effects of accent judgments by witnesses and jurors.
A wider range of accents, behaviors, and criminal offences were used to assess 10 regionally-accented British voices on a range of traits and behaviors than previous research. 180 participants completed an accent judgement task.
Results show that evaluating the impact of perceived characteristics on accents are based on evaluating the impact of likely behaviors.
Non-standard UK regional accents are generally perceived as being less bad than a standard one, but not universally, non-English accents produced more positive traits and behaviors than English accents.
Furthermore, although accents evaluated as low-status were generally more likely to behave criminally according to listeners, this varied according to the type of crime.
The discussion looks at the forensic connections between perceived status and criminality, as well as examining the significance of how different different types of offence are perceived by perpetrators of sexual crimes.
We emphasize the importance of having a nuanced understanding of how accents are viewed in relation to various crime types.
