Hearing Gender Research Articles

Who says ejque?

Abstract This paper examines language attitudes of 386 participants from all regions of Spain toward a phonetic variant used in the Madrid area, velarized coda /s/. Results show that velarized /s/ aids in the identification of a Madrid origin and, moreover, that velarized /s/ speakers are considered lower status, less pleasant, less confident, more of a tough-guy, less desirable as friends, less compatible with the listener and worse storytellers. Nearly all of these traits interact with listener gender in which women show the strongest variable effect. In addition, ethnocentrism is found to play a role in listener judgments, irrespective of the coda /s/ variant used.

Gender Attributions by Cisgender and Gender Diverse Listeners Rating Vowels, Reading, and Monologues

To determine if listeners' attributions of speakers' gender vary by linguistic context and/or the listeners' gender identity. Seventeen self-identified transgender adults assigned male at birth were audio-recorded prolonging /a/, reading sentences, and saying spontaneous monologues. Eighteen adults (10 cisgender and 8 gender-diverse individuals) listened and used a 1-5 scale (1: very masculine, 2: somewhat masculine, 3: androgynous, 4: somewhat feminine, and 5: very feminine) to rate the gender attribution of each speech sample. The intra-rater reliability was moderate to excellent (0.62-1.00). Ratings by cisgender and gender-diverse listeners were not significantly different. Ratings were not significantly different between different speech contexts of vowel, reading, and spontaneous monologue speech samples. Transwomen have many variables available to consider and use in their communication. The linguistic context (eg, reading a speech versus spontaneous monologue) or listener's gender does not appear to be highly influential factors in how listeners attribute gender.

Combined effects of face masks, acoustic environments, and speaker gender on speech recognition ability of university students in an auralised classroom

The prolonged use of face masks owing to COVID-19 has raised concerns regarding their effects on speech recognition in classroom settings. Currently, the influence of gender corresponding to the effects of face masks on speech recognition has not been studied. This study investigated the combined effects of gender and face masks (non-masked, surgical, horizontally folded and vertically folded KF94 masks) on speech recognition with the participation of two professional voice actors (1 female and 1 male) and university students (36 females and 35 males) using an auralisation technique under realistic listening conditions that included the effects of both room reverberance (RTs of 0.6 s and 1.2 s) and background noise according to teaching style (SNR of 0 dB for team learning and SNR of 12 dB for lectures). The results of this study revealed that speech recognition was significantly affected by four factors - face mask, acoustic environment, speakers’ and listeners’ gender tested in this study with different effect sizes. The room acoustic environments had the greatest effect on speech recognition, followed by speaker gender, face mask, and listener gender. High signal-to-noise ratio (lectures) in the classroom improved speech recognition in all face masked conditions including a non-masked condition compared to the low signal-to-noise ratio (team learning). In the three face masked conditions, reduced reverberation time of 0.6 s did not significantly affect speech recognition.Consequently, this study suggests that appropriate signal-to-noise ratio should be prioritized over reverberation time, face mask type, or speaker gender in mask-wearing conditions to improve speech recognition in classrooms.

Predictive Factors of Listeners’ Attitudes Related to Dysphonic Voices in Native Brazilian Portuguese

To verify whether there are differences in the judgments of listeners' attitudes as a function of the presence, severity, and type of vocal deviation, and to identify the predictive factors of listeners' attitudes toward dysphonic voices in Brazilian Portuguese speakers. A sample of CAPE-V sentences was used from 44 subjects of both genders. The samples presented different severities of vocal deviation (general grade - GG) (healthy, mild, moderate, and severe) and different degrees of roughness (GR), breathiness (GB), and strain (GS), characterized by a perceptual-auditory judgment performed by speech therapists. The samples were presented to 152 listeners of both genders who performed the judgment of 12 attitudes inserted in a semantic differential scale previously validated for this study. Here, we used a Logistic Regression Model. There was no association between listener's gender and the judgment of attitudes. Subjects with vocal quality deviation were judged more negatively in relation to vocally healthy individuals. We observed that higher the GG, higher the negative judgment of listeners in relation to the speakers. Listeners judged breathy and strained voices as more negative. In the general model for female and male voices, the increase in GB and GG reduced the chance of a voice being evaluated positively by 16 and 20%, respectively. For female voices, GB and GS reduced the chance of a female voice being evaluated positively by 36 and 19%, respectively. GG reduces the chance of a male voice being evaluated positively by 46%, while GR increases the chance of a male voice being judged positively by 62 %. There is an association between the presence, severity, and type of vocal deviation and listeners' attitudes. We identified a predictive model of listeners' attitudes related to dysphonic voices among Brazilian Portuguese speakers. In general, GG and GB were predictors of negative attitudes toward listeners. GB and GS were predictors of negative attitudes toward female voices. The GG is a predictor of negative attitudes toward male voices, while the GR increases the chance of positive judgments.

Perceptual Cue Weighting Is Influenced by the Listener's Gender and Subjective Evaluations of the Speaker: The Case of English Stop Voicing.

Speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions and their boundaries are generally fuzzy and ambiguous in part because listeners often give differential weighting to these cue dimensions during phonetic categorization. This study explored how a listener's perception of a speaker's socio-indexical and personality characteristics influences the listener's perceptual cue weighting. In a matched-guise study, three groups of listeners classified a series of gender-neutral /b/-/p/ continua that vary in VOT and F0 at the onset of the following vowel. Listeners were assigned to one of three prompt conditions (i.e., a visually male talker, a visually female talker, or audio-only) and rated the talker in terms of vocal (and facial, in the visual prompt conditions) gender prototypicality, attractiveness, friendliness, confidence, trustworthiness, and gayness. Male listeners and listeners who saw a male face showed less reliance on VOT compared to listeners in the other conditions. Listeners' visual evaluation of the talker also affected their weighting of VOT and onset F0 cues, although the effects of facial impressions differ depending on the gender of the listener. The results demonstrate that individual differences in perceptual cue weighting are modulated by the listener's gender and his/her subjective evaluation of the talker. These findings lend support for exemplar-based models of speech perception and production where socio-indexical features are encoded as a part of the episodic traces in the listeners' mental lexicon. This study also shed light on the relationship between individual variation in cue weighting and community-level sound change by demonstrating that VOT and onset F0 co-variation in North American English has acquired a certain degree of socio-indexical significance.

Effects of Natural Versus Synthetic Consonant and Vowel Stimuli on Cortical Auditory-Evoked Potential.

Background and ObjectivesNatural and synthetic speech signals effectively stimulate cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP). This study aimed to select the speech materials for CAEP and identify CAEP waveforms according to gender of speaker (GS) and gender of listener (GL).Subjects and MethodsTwo experiments including a comparison of natural and synthetic stimuli and CAEP measurement were performed of 21 young announcers and 40 young adults. Plosive /g/ and /b/ and aspirated plosive /k/ and /p/ were combined to /a/. Six bisyllables–/ga/-/ka/, /ga/-/ba/, /ga/-/pa/, /ka/-/ba/, /ka/-/pa/, and /ba/-/pa/–were formulated as tentative forwarding and backwarding orders. In the natural and synthetic stimulation mode (SM) according to GS, /ka/ and /pa/ were selected through the first experiment used for CAEP measurement.ResultsThe correction rate differences were largest (74%) at /ka/-/ pa/ and /pa/-/ka/; thus, they were selected as stimulation materals for CAEP measurement. The SM showed shorter latency with P2 and N1-P2 with natural stimulation and N2 with synthetic stimulation. The P2 amplitude was larger with natural stimulation. The SD showed significantly larger amplitude for P2 and N1-P2 with /pa/. The GS showed shorter latency for P2, N2, and N1-P2 and larger amplitude for N2 with female speakers. The GL showed shorter latency for N2 and N1-P2 and larger amplitude for N2 with female listeners.ConclusionsAlthough several variables showed significance for N2, P2, and N1-P2, P1 and N1 did not show any significance for any variables. N2 and P2 of CAEP seemed affected by endogenous factors.

Accuracy and confidence in estimation of speaker age

This article describes two experiments investigating listeners’ accuracy in estimation of speaker age as well as the listeners’ confidence that their estimates were correct. In Experiment 1, listeners made age estimates based on spontaneous speech. In Experiment 2, the estimates were based on read speech. The purpose of the study was to explore differences in accuracy and confidence depending on speech material, speaker characteristics (gender and age) and listener gender. Another purpose was to examine the realism in the listeners’ confidence ratings in estimations of spontaneous versus read speech. No differences in accuracy or confidence were found due to speech material type. Although accuracy was higher in estimates of male speakers, confidence was higher in estimates of female speakers, effects that were also dependent on speaker age. Possible acoustic and linguistic explanations behind the age and gender effects are discussed. As the correlation between confidence and accuracy was weak, it was concluded that confidence should not be relied on as an indicator of accuracy in estimation of speaker age.

Rhyme’s Voices: Hearing Gender in The Taming of the Shrew

Rhyme’s Voices: Hearing Gender in The Taming of the Shrew

Intra-regional differences in the social perception of allophonic variation: The evaluation of [tʃ] and [ʃ] in Huelva and Lepe (Western Andalucía)

AbstractThis study examines the social perceptions of the traditional Andalusian feature [ʃ] and the Castilian feature [tʃ] in the city of Huelva and the town of Lepe in Western Andalucía, Spain. A matched-guise experiment was created by digitally manipulating spontaneous speech from twelve Western Andalusian speakers, varying only in word-medial syllable-initial [tʃ] and [ʃ] for <ch> in disyllabic words. Based on 221 listeners from Huelva and Lepe, mixed effects linear regression models indicate that listeners evaluated speakers with [tʃ] guises as being of higher status, more cosmopolitan, and less friendly than speakers with [ʃ] guises. These findings interacted with speaker and listener gender, listener educational level, and listener origin. The implications are twofold: the traditional Andalusian feature is evaluated as less overtly prestigious than the supra-local Castilian feature; and, that two nearby communities of the same dialect variety may share similar language attitudes, but demonstrate nuanced differences in attitudes due to their unique historical and socioeconomic developments.

Influences of listener gender and working memory capacity on speech recognition in noise for hearing aid users

ABSTRACT This study aimed to: (1) examine the influence of working memory capacity on the ability of experienced hearing aid users to recognize speech in noise using new noise reduction settings, and (2) investigate whether male and female hearing aid users differ in their hearing sensitivity and ability to recognize aided speech in noisy environments. 195 experienced hearing aid users (113 males and 82 females, age range: 33–80 years) from the n200 project were investigated. The Hagerman test (capturing speech recognition in noise) was administered using an experimental hearing aid with two digital signal processing settings: (1) linear amplification without noise reduction (NoP), and (2) linear amplification with noise reduction (NR). Gender differences were analysed using a series of independent samples from t-tests on Hagerman sentence scores, and the pure-tone average thresholds across the frequencies 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz (PTA4) for the left ear and right ear were measured. Working memory capacity (WMC) was measured using a reading span test. A WMC grouping (high and low) was included as a between-group subject factor in the within-group factors ANOVA, NR settings (Nop, NR), noise type (steady state noise, four -talker babble), and level of performance (50%, 80%). Male listeners had better pure-tone thresholds than female listeners at frequencies 500 and 1000 Hz, whereas female listeners had better pure-tone thresholds at 4000 Hz. Female listeners showed significantly better speech recognition ability than male listeners on the Hagerman test with NR , but not with NoP . This gender difference was more pronounced at the 80% performance level than at the 50% level. WMC had a significant effect on speech recognition ability, and there was a two-way interaction between WMC grouping and level of performance. The examination of simple main effects revealed superior performance of listeners with higher WMC at 80% using new NR settings. WMC, rather than background noise, was the main factor influencing performance at 80%, while at 50%, background noise was the main factor. WMC was associated with speech recognition performance even after accounting for hearing sensitivity (PTA4). This is the first study to demonstrate that experienced male and female hearing aid users differ significantly in their hearing ability and sensitivity and ability to recognize aided speech in noise. Thus, the average female listener has a greater speech recognition ability than the average male listener when linear amplification with NR is applied, but not when NoP is activated. An average female listener hears a given sound with greater sensitivity compared with an average male listener at higher frequencies. WMC is an important factor in speech recognition in more challenging listening conditions (i.e., lower signal–noise ratio) for experienced hearing aid users using new NR settings. More investigation is needed for a better understanding of how gender affects the ability of listeners less experienced with hearing aids (such as younger and elderly hearing-impaired listeners) to recognize speech amplified with different signal processing, as gender differences may vary based on numerous factors, including the speaker’s gender and age.

The effect of female voice on verbal processing

Previous studies have suggested that female voices may impede verbal processing. For example, words were remembered less well and lexical decision was slower when spoken by a female speaker. The current study tried to replicate this gender effect in an auditory semantic/associative priming task that excluded any effects of speaker variability and extended previous research by examining the role of two voice features important in perceived gender: pitch and formant frequencies. Additionally, listener gender was included in the experimental design. Results show that, contrary to previous findings, there is no evidence that a lexical decision of a target word is slower when spoken by a female speaker than by a male speaker for female and male listeners. Additionally, the semantic/associative priming effect was not affected by speaker gender, neither did female mean pitch or formants predict the semantic/associative priming effect. At the behavioural level, the current study found no evidence for a gender effect in a semantic/associative priming task.

Hearing Gender: Voice-Based Gender Classification Processes and Transgender Health Inequality

This study examines the link between self-rated health and two aspects of gender: an individual’s gender identity, and whether strangers classify that person’s voice as male or female. In a phone-based general health survey, interviewers classified the sex of transgender women ( n = 722) and transgender men ( n = 446) based on assumptions they made after hearing respondents’ voices. The flawed design of the original survey produced inconsistent sex classification among transgender men and transgender women respondents; this study repurposes these discrepancies to look more closely at the implications of voice-based gender classification for the health of transgender men and women. Average marginal effects from logistic regression models show transgender men who are classified as women based on their voices are more likely to report poor self-rated health compared to transgender men who are classified as men. Conversely, transgender women who are classified as men are less likely to report poor self-rated health than are transgender women who are classified as women. Additionally, Black transgender men are more likely than any other group to be classified inconsistently with their gender identity, suggesting a link between race/ethnicity and gender perception.

Persuasion of voices: The effects of a speaker’s voice characteristics and gender on consumers’ responses

Voices are present in most communications. Yet, the literature on voice persuasion is astonishingly limited and fragmented, focusing on certain voice characteristics (e.g. pitch), contexts, and providing mixed results. This research attempts to integrate the various constructs and mechanisms involved in voice persuasion as a result of the cross-fertilization of the disciplines having studied voice (psychoacoustics, cognitive psychology, anthropology, psycho-sociology, marketing, and politics). Study 1 manipulates via acoustic software the key voice characteristics (i.e. pitch, roughness, and brightness) and gender of a speaker heard in a radio advertisement for a neutral, non-gendered product category. Study 2 explores a potential boundary condition of the effects of voice, the presence of context-specific expectations toward the speaker (i.e. gender and competence level), by manipulating the voice of a political candidate. The effects of the voice characteristics are consistent in both contexts: speakers with low- (vs high-) pitched, dull (vs bright), and smooth (vs rough) voices are the most effective. Speakers with high-pitched, dull, and smooth voices are perceived as the most competent. Finally, speaker gender plays a secondary persuasive role; listener gender only plays a role in the absence of context-specific expectations toward the speaker. Implications for voice and speaker persuasion as well as for voice casting and coaching are discussed.

The use of a voice onset time cue in the perception of Seoul Korean stops as a function of listener gender

The use of a voice onset time cue in the perception of Seoul Korean stops as a function of listener gender

The Unintended Consequences of Rape Disclosure: The Effects of Disclosure Content, Listener Gender, and Year in College on Listener's Reactions.

Rape is prevalent on American college campuses. Rape survivors often disclose their experience to their peers in hope of receiving support and obtaining justice (i.e., the intended consequences of disclosure). Yet, rape disclosures may also lead to unintended consequences, such as stigma. How peers react to survivors' disclosures of rape greatly influences survivors' recovery and their decision to press charges against their perpetrators. In this article, we explore gender differences in responses to rape disclosures. Using an experimental design (N = 391), we investigate reactions to stigmatizing (versus nonstigmatizing) rape disclosures. We find that, when controlling for the experimental condition, college men stigmatize the rape survivor more than college women. However, in response to a stigmatizing (versus nonstigmatizing) rape disclosure, college women who have been in college longer, compared with college men, have more stigmatizing reactions toward the person disclosing that information. Their reactions then predict increased social distance between the recipient of the disclosure and rape survivors.

Sensing emotion in voices: Negativity bias and gender differences in a validation study of the Oxford Vocal ('OxVoc') sounds database.

Emotional expressions are an essential element of human interactions. Recent work has increasingly recognized that emotional vocalizations can color and shape interactions between individuals. Here we present data on the psychometric properties of a recently developed database of authentic nonlinguistic emotional vocalizations from human adults and infants (the Oxford Vocal ‘OxVoc’ Sounds Database; Parsons, Young, Craske, Stein, & Kringelbach, 2014). In a large sample (n = 562), we demonstrate that adults can reliably categorize these sounds (as ‘positive,’ ‘negative,’ or ‘sounds with no emotion’), and rate valence in these sounds consistently over time. In an extended sample (n = 945, including the initial n = 562), we also investigated a number of individual difference factors in relation to valence ratings of these vocalizations. Results demonstrated small but significant effects of (a) symptoms of depression and anxiety with more negative ratings of adult neutral vocalizations (R2 = .011 and R2 = .008, respectively) and (b) gender differences in perceived valence such that female listeners rated adult neutral vocalizations more positively and infant cry vocalizations more negatively than male listeners (R2 = .021, R2 = .010, respectively). Of note, we did not find evidence of negativity bias among other affective vocalizations or gender differences in perceived valence of adult laughter, adult cries, infant laughter, or infant neutral vocalizations. Together, these findings largely converge with factors previously shown to impact processing of emotional facial expressions, suggesting a modality-independent impact of depression, anxiety, and listener gender, particularly among vocalizations with more ambiguous valence.

Influence of radio spokesperson gender and vocal pitch on advertising effectiveness: The role of listener gender

In radio advertising, there is a tendency to employ males in the belief that the male voice is more credible and effective. Because of this, advertising practice is encouraging gender discrimination in disregard of objective criteria. This paper analyzes the effects of spokesperson gender and vocal pitch and their interaction, as well as the effect of listener gender on effectiveness in relation to a radio spot for a non-gendered product (blood donation). We conducted a 2 (male–female voices)×2 (low-high vocal pitches)×2 (male–female listeners) experimental design via 4 radio programs in which we inserted a radio spot in a commercial block. A sample of 987 Spanish radio listeners was used. Our findings contrast with the existing practice in advertising of preferring male voices, highlighting the need for objective criteria in the selection of voices. In fact, the results shows that vocal pitch has a direct effect which is more significant than gender in terms of unaided recall. Additionally, the results of the interaction effect between spokesperson gender and vocal pitch reinforce the use of female voices, as low-pitched female voices are precisely the ones that generate more favorable attitudes toward the ad and the brand.

Discrimination of voice gender in the human auditory cortex

Discerning a speaker's gender from their voice is a basic and crucial aspect of human communication. Voice pitch height, the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency, is higher in females and provides a cue for gender discrimination. However, male and female voices are also differentiated by multiple other spectral and temporal characteristics, including mean formant frequency and spectral flux. The robust perceptual segregation of male and female voices is thought to result from processing the combination of discriminating features, which in neural terms may correspond to early sound object analysis occurring in non-primary auditory cortex. However, the specific mechanism for gender perception has been unclear. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that discrete sites in non-primary auditory cortex are differentially activated by male and female voices, with female voices consistently evoking greater activation in the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus and posterior superior temporal plane. This finding was observed at the individual subject-level in all 24 subjects. The neural response was highly specific: no auditory regions were more activated by male than female voices. Further, the activation associated with female voices was 1) larger than can be accounted for by a sole effect of fundamental frequency, 2) not due to psychological attribution of female gender and 3) unaffected by listener gender. These results demonstrate that male and female voices are represented as distinct auditory objects in the human brain, with the mechanism for gender discrimination being a gender-dependent activation-level cue in non-primary auditory cortex.

Listeners' Attitude Toward People With Dysphonia

The human voice provides extensive information about the speaker, in addition to the intended linguistic message. Therefore, voice is an essential component in the process of forming an initial attitude toward the speaker. People with communication disorders are typically judged by listeners more negatively than those speaking normally. This trend, however, was not reported consistently regarding voice disorders. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine listeners' attitude toward dysphonic speakers. In addition, the impact of speaker's and listener's gender on these attitudes was also examined. Seventy-four naive listeners evaluated recorded voice samples of six dysphonic and six nondysphonic speakers. Evaluation was performed using a semantic differential scale with 12 bipolar items. In addition, factor analysis was performed to validate listeners' attitudes and allow generalization of the results. Statistically significant negative attitudes toward dysphonic speakers were found at all 12 scales (P<0.001). Moreover, dysphonic women were rated more negatively than dysphonic men. Nonetheless, listeners' gender and age did not affect their attitude toward speakers (P>0.05). These results were further enhanced and supported by a factor analysis performed based on the original attitude rating scores. Our findings provide empirical evidence for the negative attitudes with which dysphonic speakers are faced; demonstrating how women are affected by these attitudes more than men and highlight the importance of addressing and relating to these facets in the diagnostic and therapeutic process.

Gender differences in familiar voice identification

We investigated gender differences in the identification of personally familiar voices in a gender-balanced sample of 40 listeners. From various types of utterances, listeners had to identify by name 20 speakers (10 female) among a set of 70 possible classmates who were all 12th grade pupils from the same local secondary school. Mean identification rates were 67% from sentences, and around 35% for an isolated /Hello/ or a VCV syllable. Even from non-verbal harrumphs, speakers were identified with an accuracy of 18%, i.e. highly above chance levels. Substantial individual differences were observed between listeners. Importantly, superior overall performance of female listeners was qualified by an interaction between voice gender and listener gender. Male listeners exhibited an own-gender bias (i.e. better identification for male than female voices), whereas female listeners identified voices of both genders at similar levels. Individual own-gender identification biases were correlated with differences in reported contact to a speaker's voice and voice distinctiveness. Overall, the present study establishes a number of factors that account for substantial individual differences in personal voice identification.