Brummie accents 'sound more guilty'

Suspects who speak with a Brummie accent are more likely to be perceived as being guilty.

In tests using actors, researchers have found that listeners rated a suspect with a Birmingham accent more guilty than one speaking with a standard accent, according to a report of the research in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology.

In the study, more than 100 people were asked to listen to different versions of a two-minute recorded conversation using actors and based on the transcript of an interview that occurred in a British police station in 1995.

The conversation featured a middle-aged male police inspector interrogating a young male suspect in his twenties who pleaded innocent to a crime. Actors were hired to speak with Birmingham and standard English accents.

The listeners were asked to rate the suspect's guilt on a seven-point scale ranging from innocent to guilty.

"The Brummie suspect was rated as more guilty, suggesting that attributions of guilt may also be affected by accent in a British context," say the team from Lancaster University and University College, Worcester.

Just why a Brummie accent should inspire thoughts of guilt is not clear and the researchers say that more work is needed.