Earwitness Testimony

Earwitness testimony refers to the process of gathering and interpreting memory accounts based on sound rather than sight. In many investigative contexts, crimes are more often heard than seen, with auditory experiences sometimes serving as the sole evidence available. Despite this, conventional forensic methodologies tend to privilege visual over auditory information, leaving earwitness accounts undervalued and underutilised.

Earshot seeks to address this gap by developing tools and techniques specifically tailored to the auditory domain. Its approach centres on eliciting, reconstructing, and analysing sonic memories with scientific rigour and ethical consideration.

Structured interviews are conducted with earwitnesses, using a multimodal approach that combines verbal enquiry with auditory stimuli. These stimuli may include synthesised tones, white noise, convolutional reverberation, digital acoustic modelling, and curated sound effects. This aids memory recall and provides earwitnesses with a perceptual vocabulary for experiences that are often difficult to articulate. This method is particularly effective in cases where individuals had only peripheral exposure to events (e.g., through walls, blindfolds, or other visual obstructions), or where specific sounds, voices or acoustic conditions play a defining role in how events were perceived.

These methods have proved particularly valuable in uncovering instances of illegal and inhumane incarceration and abduction. They have enabled the extraction of crucial information from behind blindfolds and in echoing spaces concealed behind walls. They have also been used to analyse the sound of air strikes, helping determine the origin of jets and drones heard over conflict zones.

A notable example of this approach was the 2016 investigation into Saydnaya prison, led by Earshot’s founding director, Dr Lawrence Abu Hamdan. Working alongside Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International, Dr. Abu Hamdan developed earwitness testimonies to map the conditions of incarceration under the Assad regime. This was one of the first public uses of earwitnessing as a primary forensic tool, setting a benchmark for future investigations. The liberation of the prison in December 2025 served to evaluate the effectiveness of the 2016 methods, as it was finally possible to see inside the prison and hear from many more survivors. Reviewing the 2016 model and witness descriptions alongside the photographs and testimonies that emerged after the prison’s liberation revealed a striking resemblance, confirming the reconstruction process’ accuracy.