Speaker Sex Research Articles

Identification of speaker sex from isolated, voiceless fricatives.

A study was designed to investigate the ability of listeners to identify speaker sex from isolated productions of /f/, /θ/, /s/, and /∫/. Nine females and nine males recorded the four fricatives in isolation. The stimuli were randomized and presented via loudspeaker to 10 listeners for sex identifications. The results indicated that the listeners could identify the sex of the speakers from the isolated productions of /s/ and /∫/, but could not from the /f/ and /θ/ productions. Subsequent spectrographic analysis of the /s/ and /∫/ stimuli revealed that the female spectra tended generally to be higher in frequency than the male.

Changes in Pitch and first Three Formant Frequencies of Five Japanese Vowels with Ahe and Sex of Speakers

Changes in Pitch and first Three Formant Frequencies of Five Japanese Vowels with Ahe and Sex of Speakers

Effects of Vocal Effort upon the Consonant-Vowel Ratio within the Syllable

Subjects spoke /s/-vowel-/s/ monosyllables at two syllabic levels which required a large contrast in effort without extreme departure from average conversational effort. At the higher level the median within-syllable consonant-vowel ratio was approximately −14 db; at the lower level (vowel 18 db down) it was approximately −7 db. The ratio also varied with position of the consonant within the syllable, with vowel and with sex of speaker; effort, vowel, and sex interacted. The variations were systematic and large enough to have implications for intelligibility.