Journal of Forensic Research

Effect of Disguise on Fundamental Frequency of Voice

Abstract

Surbhi Mathur, Choudhary SK and Vyas JM

Although the rapid development of speaker recognition technology is happening, there are still many problems to be solved. The biggest problem arises when the cases of disguised voice samples are come across for the purpose of identification. The samples of disguise are frequently encountered in the forensic scenario like in case of anonymous calls, ransom calls and threatening calls where the speaker makes a deliberate effort to change their voice in order to hide their identity due to the fear of being caught. Voice disguise complicates the process of speaker identification by causing damage to the normal vocal parameters of the speakers; especially fundamental frequency (F0) which is the basic frequency with which the vocal cords of individuals vibrates. The aim of this paper is to study the amount of variation occurring in F0 of disguise and normal speech samples of speakers. This will also aid in determining the validity and reliability of F0 parameter of voice under different disguise conditions.