Caller vocal cues like accent could bias emergency dispatchers’ response decisions.

Evidence

Studies have shown that, for instance, different accents are stereotypically associated with different social classes (Krauss & Pardo, 2006); thus, in this context, where the only means of communication occurs through the phone, such characteristics might be particularly important because they have the potential to affect decision-making. For instance, if the caller’s vocal characteristics suggest that they belong to a high socioeconomic class, will the dispatcher be more likely to prioritize this call, compared to when the caller sounds like they belong to a lower socioeconomic class? Furthermore, paraverbal cues, such as shakiness of voice, could also signal how much stress or threat the caller is experiencing, and the way they interpret these emotional states might influence how they transmit this information to the first responders. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 296

Categorization

• QUESTION: Directly testable empirical question: do dispatchers grade calls by perceived caller class? Relevant to the reader’s work on how bias transmits through institutional intermediaries.
• XREF: Connects to research on bias transmission through institutional chains — echo of how police stops or 911 calls begin the chain that ends in court bias findings.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 296