Psychological Science ›› 2013, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (2): 306-310.

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The Characteristics of Speech Spectrum When Lying in The Lie Scale of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

  

  • Received:2011-07-06 Revised:2012-03-09 Online:2013-03-20 Published:2013-03-20
  • Contact: Genyue FU

在艾森克人格问卷L量表上说谎的语音频谱特征

王乾东1,胡超2,2,傅根跃1   

  1. 1. 浙江师范大学
    2.
  • 通讯作者: 傅根跃
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金项目

Abstract: This research aimed at exploring the differences of speech spectrum of different phonemes(vowels or consonants) between telling lies and telling truths in the lie scale of Eysenck personality questionnaire(L scale). Because the voice can reflect a man’s emotional and physical state and telling lies may evoke physical arousal, we hypothesized that the speech spectrum during lying and truth-telling would be different. Forty-six subjects completed the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Short Scale for Chinese edited by Zhonggeng Chen, which has been demonstrated to be reliable and valid for Chinese participants. The inventory contains four personality trait scales: Psychoticism (P), Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N), and Social Desirability (L). The L scale contains questions on which individuals tend to lie for social desirability, and the scoring standard is the same for everyone. If a participant received a score of one instead of zero on an L scale question, then this response was recorded as a lie. They were instructed to verbally answer the questions shown on a computer screen by E-Prime 2.0 with “yes” or “no”(/shi/ or /bushi/) in Chinese and their responses were recorded by the computer. Praat 5.1.30 software in a Windows 2003 operating system was used to analyze participants’ recorded voice samples. Measured speech spectrum parameters included fundamental frequency, frequency of the former three formants (F1, F2, F3), and bandwidth of the first three formants (B1, B2, B3). We analyzed the speech spectrum parameters of both the consonant /sh/ and the vowel /i/ in the present study because it has been previously demonstrated that the position and motion of oral cavity, larynx and tongue are different between consonants and vowels when they are pronounced. The responses of “yes” and “no” were also analyzed separately in order to control the influences of /bu/ to /sh/ and /i/. Consistent with our hypothesis, Paired Sample t Test showed that: when participants responded with “yes”, the effects of lying were significant or margin significant on F1, F3, and B1 of the consonant /sh/ (p=.074,p=.032,p=.069, respectively); when participants responded with “no”, the effects of lying were significant on F1, F2, and F3 of the consonant /sh/ (p=.037,p=.020,p=.015, respectively); There was not any significant effect of lying on the speech spectrum of /bu/ and the vowel /i/ in whatever kind of responses (all ps > .10). The results of this research indicated that it was effective to distinguish telling lies and telling truths through speech spectrum analysis. In addition, the effects of lying on the speech spectrums of different phonemes may be varied.

Key words: speech spectrum, lie scale of Eysenck personality questionnaire, lying

摘要: 本研究探索艾森克人格问卷说谎量表上说谎与不说谎的语音频谱差别。我们录下被试在做艾森克人格问卷时回答“是”或“不是”的声音。使用Praat语音分析软件对/bu/,/sh/、/i/的前三个共振峰频率和波段(F1、F2、F3、B1、B2、B3)进行分析。结果发现:说“是”时说谎和说真话在/sh/的F1、F3、B1上存在差异,说“不是”时在/sh/的F1、F2、F3上存在差异。本研究表明说谎和说真话在语音频谱上存在差异,同时说谎在不同音素上的效应可能不一样。

关键词: 语音频谱, 艾森克人格问卷说谎量表, 说谎