In trans women, low-pitched voice can be raised by cricothyroid approximation (CTA). The aim of the study was to analyze voice outcomes in trans women with Type A cricothyroid joints (CTJs) over a period of 5 years. Prospective cohort study. Thirty-five trans women were included in the study after high-resolution computed tomography evaluation revealed a Type A CTJ (Type A: well-defined facet; B: no definable facet; C: flat cartilage surface). All had voice therapy before CTA. Additionally, voice assessment (mean speaking level [MSL], loudness, vocal range of speaking voice, Trans Women Voice Questionnaire [TWVQ]) was performed before and after voice therapy, and after CTA at 4 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year, and then annually for 5 years. MSL rose with voice therapy from 134 to 150 Hz. With CTA, the MSL increased to 184 Hz 4 weeks postoperatively and to 199 Hz 6 months postoperatively. The MSL has remained stable at 203-209 Hz for 5 years. The TWVQ score decreased from 91 to 84 patients with voice therapy. After CTA, it decreased to 50 patients and has remained stable for 5 years. CTA in trans women with Type A CTJ is a valuable technique for elevating MSL, providing stable results for 5 years. Therefore, CTA should only be performed in patients with Type A CTJs who desire higher pitched voices. Level 4.

Surgical Interventions for Voice Masculinization: A Scoping Review.

The Effect of Surgeon Vocal Pitch and Gender on Patient Satisfaction.

This study examined Grade 10 students’ preferences regarding the paralinguistic features of English language teachers, specifically pitch variation, voice volume, speaking rate, rhythm, and inflection for emphasis. Anchored in the premise that effective classroom communication extends beyond verbal content, the study employed a descriptive–analytical quantitative research design. Fifty (50) Grade 10 students from Caybiga High School were purposively selected as respondents due to their regular exposure to English language instruction. Data were collected using a researcher-developed and expert-validated questionnaire and analyzed using frequency counts, percentages, weighted means, standard deviations, and nonparametric inferential statistics. Findings revealed that students demonstrated very high preferences across all paralinguistic dimensions, particularly dynamic pitch, expressive inflection, appropriate voice volume, moderate pacing, and consistent rhythm. These vocal features were perceived as significantly enhancing student engagement, comprehension, focus, and the overall classroom experience. Moreover, statistical analysis revealed no significant differences in students’ preferences when grouped by age or gender, suggesting a consistent valuation of effective vocal projection across demographic groups. Based on the results, a structured Paralinguistics Program was proposed to support teachers’ professional development through targeted training, practice activities, and feedback mechanisms. The study underscores the pedagogical importance of intentional paralinguistic strategies in English language teaching and highlights their role in fostering inclusive, engaging, and student-centered learning environments.

The present study investigated how acoustic and phonetic characteristics of synthetic and natural voices affect personality impressions of the voices. To this end, we conducted a personality rating experiment in which 30 native Korean speakers judged the perceived personality of natural Korean utterances and their synthetic counterparts (voice clones) using the Big-Five personality model. Various acoustic parameters, including measures of voice quality, F0, and articulation rate, were then extracted from the speech, and Intonational Phrase boundary tones were annotated. The ratings of the Big-Five personality traits were reduced to two dimensions (P1: agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability; P2: extraversion and openness) using a principal component analysis. The results suggest that the acoustic differences between state-of-the-art synthetic speech and its original counterpart can produce varying effects on personality perception. For example, speech produced with a narrower F0 range received lower scores on P1 and P2, but for male speakers, this effect was only observed in synthetic voices, likely due to the less-natural intonational patterns used. The intonation analysis further demonstrates that across speech type, using context-appropriate tones or those conveying positive attitudes improves the overall impression of the voice (both P1 and P2). The results also suggest that a less-modal voice enhances the personality scores overall, but specific voice qualities (i.e., breathiness and creakiness) and voice pitch seem to affect P1 and P2 differently. The present study demonstrates a range of acoustic and phonetic characteristics that should be considered when designing personas for AI voices or developing more likable synthetic voices.

Evaluation of English as an additional language (L2) speech comprehensibility in classroom and standardized test situations is important for students’ academic and career success. While previous research has found phonetic differences between male and female speech, as well as disparities in language learning ability and academic achievement, little is known about how these gender-related factors affect listener evaluations of L2 speech. This study examined responses of 201 raters from 23 first language (L1) backgrounds to the question of whether or not there are differences in male and female English L2 speaker comprehensibility. The results indicated that 66.7% perceived no difference, 27.9% judged female speakers to be easier to understand, and only 5.5% judged male speakers to be easier to understand. Written comments were coded and frequencies of codes compared in terms of rater sex and teaching experience. While overall likelihood of perceiving gender effects did not differ, the reasons given did. Male raters and teachers tended to reject gender differences on philosophical grounds, whereas students more often reported never noticing them. Among those who perceived gender differences, lower male voice pitch was seen as hindering intelligibility, while females were thought to make greater efforts at clarity and correction. Greater familiarity with female L2 speech was also cited, highlighting potential gender bias in listener judgments of comprehensibility. Based on these findings, implications and recommendations for ensuring fairness in L2 assessment are presented.

Gender-Affirming Laryngeal Surgery: The Effects of the Modified Wendler's Glottoplasty on Voice Pitch and Quality of Life.

Cochlear implant (CI) patients generally exhibit poorer emotional prosody identification than their typically hearing (TH) counterparts. Utilization of prosodic cues by CI listeners may depend on their auditory experience. Here, we assessed reliance on voice pitch (F0) contour, duration, and intensity cues in a happy/sad emotion identification task using stimuli with the cues manipulated orthogonally. Results showed that TH adults relied strongly on F0 contour and duration cues in the task. TH children exhibited developmental effects, relying less on F0 and duration cues than TH adults. Prelingually deaf, young cochlear implant (YCI) users and postlingually deaf adults with cochlear implants relied less on F0 cues than their TH counterparts. For YCI, early implantation was associated with slightly better utilization of F0 cues, and device experience was a strong predictor of F0 and duration cue utilization. These results underscore the importance of early implantation but also demonstrate experience-driven malleability of cue-utilization for emotional prosody identification, suggesting that rehabilitation targeting prosodic cues is likely to benefit pediatric CI recipients. In YCI, the weighting of both F0 contour and duration cues predicted their accuracy in an emotional prosody identification task using naturally recorded materials and thus may be relevant to their everyday emotion communication.

Age-related decline in emotional prosody perception has been reported in adults, but the mechanisms underlying this aging effect remain unknown. The primary objective of the present study was to investigate the extent to which individuals aged 19 to 72 years with typical hearing (better-ear hearing thresholds ≤25 dB HL from 0.25 to 2 kHz, with some older individuals showing mild or moderate hearing loss in higher frequencies) weight voice pitch contour, duration, and intensity in an emotional prosody identification task, and how this cue-weighting changes with advancing age. An increasing number of aging adults today have hearing loss, and some of them use cochlear implants to hear. Age-related decline in emotional prosody identification has also been reported in cochlear implant patients, but as with acoustically hearing counterparts, the mechanisms are unknown. A second objective of this study was to investigate changes in cue-weighting patterns when stimuli were spectrally degraded to mimic cochlear implant processing and information transmission. A third objective was to study the relationship between participants' cue-weighting and their emotional prosody identification in a task involving naturally recorded materials. To assess cue-weighting, stimuli were orthogonally manipulated to have combinations of the different cues, from values associated with the "happy" emotion to those associated with the "sad" emotion along each of the three dimensions (pitch, duration, and intensity). Participants heard each item in random order and indicated the emotion (happy or sad) they thought was being expressed. Logistic regression analysis of trial-by-trial data yielded cue-weighting coefficients. Response times obtained on a trial-by-trial basis were analyzed to yield additional information about task load when cues were consistent or conflicting with one another. Participants were 50 adults (all native speakers of US English). All had clinically normal hearing in the low frequencies (0.25, 0.5, 1.0, and 2 kHz). Of the 50, 7 (all middle-aged or older) had mild or moderate hearing loss at higher frequencies. To achieve the third objective, emotional prosody identification was assessed in a subset of the participants who had participated in the cue-weighting study. Results showed a significant age-related decline in voice pitch contour weighting, as well as an age-related reduction in the weighting of duration cues, for emotional prosody identification. The presence of mild/moderate hearing loss in the high frequencies also reduced the utilization of voice pitch contour cues. Spectro-temporal degradation resulted in reduced utilization of voice pitch contour cues, but aging effects remained. Response times obtained in the cue-weighting task showed an age-related increase, as well as elevation when cues conflicted with one another. Finally, mediation analysis showed that weighting of voice pitch contour cues in the cue-weighting experiment partially mediated age-related decline in emotional prosody identification observed with naturally recorded stimuli. This study confirmed previous findings of age-related decline in emotional prosody identification in individuals with good hearing. The results also showed that aging has a negative impact on listeners' access to dynamic changes in voice pitch cues to emotion, which persists when stimuli are degraded to reduce voice pitch information. Finally, the results showed that age-related decline in emotional prosody identification is partially mediated by age-related decline in the ability to use dynamic changes in voice pitch.

Typically feminine morphological traits in women include a neotenous facial structure with large eyes, full lips, and an oval face shape, and a curvaceous body with large breasts, a narrow waist, and full hips and buttocks. Compared to men, women also show higher second-to-fourth finger (2D:4D) ratios as well as less muscle mass, lower physical strength, and a higher voice pitch. Due to a putative association with oestrogen levels, feminine traits are often claimed to cue women’s reproductive potential. However, the evidence for this is scarce and inconsistent, typically measuring proxies rather than actual fertility outcomes. Here, we report a systematic review of direct fertility measures as a function of morphological traits in women, including breast size, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), voice pitch, strength, and 2D:4D; no articles were found measuring facial femininity. The review included 19 articles comprising 68 effect sizes (31 samples from 16 countries; total N = 125,062). Our review showed that a less feminine WHR may cue past fertility, and a more feminine 2D:4D may be, at best, weakly associated with fertility. Overall, we conclude that the current evidence base is too weak to support the claim that women’s feminine morphological traits are associated with reproductive potential.

To extract a voice from a background of competing speakers, the human brain exploits voice pitch (harmonic cues) and spatial location (binaural cues) to separate speakers perceptually, and effectively attenuates the background (anything but the target voice). Quieter backgrounds are generally favourable to attentional and memory systems because they free up cognitive resources otherwise spent decoding speech. Therefore, we hypothesize that harmonic and binaural cues have benefits beyond their known contribution to auditory masking release to higher-level cognitive processes, namely short-term recall. To test this, fifty 10-word lists were presented to adult participants with normal hearing in the presence of a non-linguistic masker. Experiment 1 presented words either on the same fundamental frequency (F0) or on different F0 by three-semitones from the masking tone. Experiment 2 presented words either at the same location or differing by 120° from the masking noise. Our results reaffirm that harmonic and binaural cues facilitate speech intelligibility, but there is a cognitive cost to these masking releases. Contrary to our hypothesis, the use of harmonic and spatial cues was associated with a significant detriment to words' recall, once intelligibility was controlled for.

Voices are an important part of marketing communications. Hence, this study draws on sound symbolism to explore how voice pitch in a destination promotion video helps communicate the gender identity of a destination and ultimately generate visitors. The findings of three experimental studies demonstrate that a lower (vs. higher)-voice pitch symbolizes masculinity (vs. femininity), providing an obvious gender cue for tourists to evaluate the gender identity of a destination. This voiceover-destination congruency in masculinity/femininity perception was found to trigger one’s auditory mental imagery and travel intention, whereas voiceover-tourist congruency only fostered one’s travel intention to masculine destinations. Theoretically, results challenge self-congruency theory and suggest that masculine/feminine tourists may not necessarily value gender identity congruency as much as they have in the past which might be due to heterosexuality becoming less normative. Practically, auditory communication of destinations should consider masculinity/femininity congruency between the voiceover and the destination.

ABSTRACTSociolinguists emphasize the context‐dependence of social meanings activated by linguistic variation. I examine this dynamic using the Goffmanian concept of frames, focusing on the intersection of gender and sexuality. More specifically, I explore pitch variation as an index of femininity in the domestic abuse victimization frame. People expect the “ideal victim” to be weak, blameless, and, importantly, female. Using an experiment, I show that female victims who diverge from this expectation by having a lower Voice Pitch are perceived as less scared and less rational than their higher pitched counterparts. This effect only emerges for victims in heteronormative relationships, however, with Voice Pitch becoming “indexically inoperative” in cases where a victim already diverges from stereotypical expectations of a victim by having a Female Abuser. I discuss this finding in relation to established dynamics in sociolinguistic perception and to domestic abuse policing.

The endorsement effectiveness of virtual influencers in nonprofit fundraising: The role of appearance and voice pitch

BackgroundEmotional resilience (traditionally defined as the capacity to recover from adversity) and cognitive load (the mental effort for processing information) are critical aspects of mental health functioning. Traditional assessment methods, such as physiological sensors and post-task surveys, often disrupt natural behavior and fail to provide real-time insights. Speech prosody, encompassing pitch, intensity, loudness, and voice activity, offer a non-intrusive alternative for evaluating these psychological constructs. However, the relationship between speech prosody, emotional resilience, and cognitive load remains underexplored, particularly in conversational contexts.ObjectiveThis study proposes proxy measures for these constructs based on self-reported engagement, enjoyment, boredom, and cognitive effort during dyadic conversation. By leveraging the SEWA (Automatic Sentiment Estimation in the Wild) database, developed through a European research project on emotion recognition, the research seeks to develop machine learning models that correlate speech patterns with subjective self-reports of emotional and cognitive states.MethodsProsodic features, such as pitch variation, vocal intensity, and voice activity, were extracted from the SEWA database recordings. These features are then normalized to account for inter-speaker variability and used as predictors in machine learning models. Regression and classification models are employed to correlate speech features with subjective self-reports, which serve as ground truth for Positive Affective Engagement (as a proxy for emotional resilience) and Perceived Mental Strain (as a proxy for cognitive load). Data from English and German speakers are analyzed separately to account for linguistic and cultural differences.OutcomesThe study establishes a significant relationship between speech prosody and psychological states, demonstrating that Positive Affective Engagement (as a proxy for emotional resilience) and Perceived Mental Strain (as a proxy for cognitive load) can be effectively predicted through prosodic features. Higher emotional resilience is linked to more discernible prosodic patterns in German speech, such as higher loudness and greater voice probability consistency. In contrast, cognitive load prediction remains consistent across English and German datasets.ConclusionThis research introduces a novel approach for assessing Positive Affective Engagement (as a proxy for emotional resilience) and Perceived Mental Strain (as a proxy for cognitive load) through speech prosody, highlighting the significant impact of language-specific variations. By combining prosodic features with machine learning techniques, the study offers a promising alternative to traditional psychological assessments. The findings emphasize the need for tailored, multilingual models to accurately estimate psychological states, with potential applications in mental health monitoring, cognitive workload analysis, and human-computer interaction. This work lays the foundation for future innovations in speech-based psychological profiling, advancing our understanding of human emotional and cognitive states in diverse linguistic contexts.

Amplitude-modulation (AM) plays an important role in the perception of complex sounds, and transformations in AM encoding may underlie aspects of complex sound perception. Previous studies have described a hierarchical progression across the auditory pathway, characterized by a decrease in the temporal precision of AM encoding. In human and nonhuman primates (NHP), the left hemisphere exhibits enhanced temporal encoding relative to the right hemisphere. The NHP model provides an opportunity to understand what circuit mechanisms generate these transformations in encoding by characterizing AM encoding in different intracortical circuits, and across the cortical hierarchy. To address this, here we report the encoding of AM signals as a function of cortical layer and hemisphere in NHP core and parabelt auditory cortex (AC). We recorded electrophysiological activity using linear array multielectrodes positioned across cortical layers while AM noise and click trains were presented to awake NHPs. Core AC typically encoded all AM frequencies (1.6–200 Hz) with high ( > 90%) classification accuracy, while sites in the parabelt encoded a subset of lower (~1.6–25 Hz) frequencies. Across both areas, the granular and infragranular layers displayed enhanced AM encoding relative to the supragranular layers. Both areas displayed enhanced AM encoding in the left hemisphere, restricted to the supragranular layers. These results represent the first analysis of AM encoding in the parabelt, indicating that significant temporal encoding of AM is still present in tertiary auditory cortex, and the layer-specific hemispheric differences suggest a potential supragranular layer origin of previously documented left-hemisphere dominance in temporal encoding.

Across different stages of her career, Taylor Swift has moved in and out of communities that have distinct regional or socio-cultural dialects. Her extensive history of media interactions offers a rare opportunity to observe longitudinal dialect change. Here, we show that Swift's conversational speech exhibited notable signatures of Southern accent during her time in Nashville, including a shortened trajectory for /aɪ/ vowels ("ride" becomes similar to "rod") and exaggerated fronting of the /u/ vowel, even outside of coronal phonetic contexts. These features were lost after her return to Philadelphia, and hypercorrected upon her relocation to New York City, where she expanded the distinction between low-back vowels (in words like "cot" and "caught"). She also lowered her voice pitch (F0) during her time in New York City, coincident with her increased visibility speaking on issues of social change. These results, which would be virtually impossible to observe in a controlled laboratory study, have broad implications for our understanding of the combined influences of place, profession, and leadership goals on an individual's dialect adaptation later in life, suggesting that the ways people use language for conveying identity and community belonging are malleable within specific timeframes and goals.

Abstract: Introduction: Every human voice is unique because of anatomical, physiological, cultural, sociolinguistic and behavioural factors. Any disorder interfering with approximation, tension or vibration of vocal cord will change the quality, pitch and loudness of voice. The objective was to study the clinical profile, histopathological patterns and treatment options of benign lesions of larynx. Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted for 80 cases clinically diagnosed as benign lesions of larynx. The inflammatory lesions were treated by conservative medical and speech therapy. Surgical intervention was done for neoplastic lesions of vocal cord. Results: In our study, majority of patients 28(35%) were between 21-30 years of age. Male preponderence was seen. Voice abuse in 53 cases was the common predisposing factor. The most frequent symptom Hoarseness or voice change together constituted 66(82.5%), followed by vocal fatigue. Vocal cord polyp was the most frequent benign lesion in 17(21.25%) patients, followed by vocal cord nodule in 14, chronic laryngitis in 8 and vocal cord palsy in 7 patients. Microlaryngeal surgery was done in 49 patients. Conclusion: The vocal cord polyp is the commonest benign laryngeal lesions producing hoarseness of voice as the chief complaint. There was a high correlation between clinical and pathological diagnosis of benign lesions of larynx.

Autism is characterized by distinct patterns of social communication, interests, and behaviors. Gender incongruence involves a mismatch between one's experienced and assigned gender, often accompanied by significant distress (i.e., gender dysphoria). Recent studies revealed that autistic individuals report gender dysphoria more frequently than the general population and are overrepresented in gender clinic settings. Autistic individuals also report hypersensitivity to certain sensory stimuli, which can elicit distress. When this distress is triggered by certain auditory stimuli (e.g., one's or others' biological sounds such as chewing or swallowing) it is categorized as misophonia. Misophonia appears to be highly prevalent in autism. We propose that a lesser-studied phenomenon, puberphonia, could exemplify an attempt to reduce the distress elicited by misophonia in a certain category of individuals. Puberphonia is characterized by an unusually high-pitched voice, predominantly in teenage boys and men, that can occur in the absence of identifiable physical causes. The psychogenic aspects of puberphonia are just beginning to be explored. We hereby propose an exploratory direction, suggesting that puberphonia may be an individual's attempt at diminishing a distressing auditory stimulus (misophonia) due to their deepening voice. This, in turn, may be an indicator of unrecognized gender dysphoria. Given that voice pitch has also been reported to be higher in autistic males compared to controls, we further ask whether autism is more prevalent among cases of psychogenic puberphonia. Finally, we wish to draw attention to the need for research on the epidemiology and overlap of puberphonia, gender dysphoria, misophonia, and autism.

Androgens are increasingly being prescribed as a supplement for cisgender women to combat symptoms such as decreased libido, low energy, dysphoria, and reduced muscle mass. Since testosterone is not FDA-approved specifically for women, it is prescribed off-label with variable dosing and quality, and potential risks such as voice change are still being explored. This scoping review aims to describe existing literature investigating the effects of androgen supplementation on the voice in cisgender women. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched from inception to October 10th, 2024. All articles that assessed changes in voice quality in women undergoing androgen supplementation were included. A total of 2191 studies were imported for initial screening. Of these, 1420 articles were screened at the title/abstract level, 78 at the full-text level, and 14 met inclusion criteria. Voice changes in cisgender women using off-label androgen use varied by dose, duration, and delivery route. Transdermal formulations showed minimal effects, while intramuscular injections of testosterone or anabolic steroids were associated with pitch lowering, voice instability, and other undesirable vocal changes. Subjective and objective findings confirmed impaired vocal range, fatigue, and structural alterations, particularly in premenopausal women. Androgens like testosterone have been evidenced to confer a potential risk of subjective and objective voice deepening for cisgender women, in a dose- and duration-dependent manner. There is inadequate consensus for systematic determination of safe dosing and patient selection to avoid this potentially irreversible adverse effect.