Abstract
Listeners find that discriminating between two languages is relatively easy compared to identifying new samples. Listener responses seem to be influenced by regional speech characteristics and talker voice quality. This study attempted to assess listener ability to match spoken samples of unknown languages when produced by male and female talkers. Samples from Arabic and Latvian, three provided by male talkers and three by female talkers, were assembled in a test using ABX format. Listeners matched the X language with either the A or B language, across same sex and different sex talkers. Overall, listeners performed at above chance levels, 60% correct. Listeners identified the two languages at approximately equal rates. They matched speech samples produced by males (75%) better than speech samples produced by females (53%). Listeners matched languages across speaker gender at 55% correct. These results suggest that speaker sex, as part of voice quality, is encoded with a representation of the unknown language.
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