How reliably can individuals be recognised by their voices? This
question has recently been the subject of much debate among speech
researchers and forensic scientists and the controversial and crucial
nature of that debate has stimulated a wide range of empirical research.
In this book Dr Nolan argues convincingly that both the design and
interpretation of many of these experiments are vitiated by the lack of
a comprehensive model of variability between speakers and within the
speech of an individual. This volume clearly demonstrates that any valid
theory of speaker recognition must integrate the approaches of a number
of disciplines and it is itself an important step towards that
integration. It will be of interest to phoneticians and to speech
scientists, including those with an engineering background and also to
forensic scientists specialising in this area.