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Spontaneous voice gender imitation abilities in adult speakers

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posted on 2023-06-07, 18:21 authored by Valentina Cartei, Heidi Wind Cowles, David Reby
Background The frequency components of the human voice play a major role in signalling the gender of the speaker. A voice imitation study was conducted to investigate individuals' ability to make behavioural adjustments to fundamental frequency (F0), and formants (Fi) in order to manipulate their expression of voice gender. Methodology/Principal Findings Thirty-two native British-English adult speakers were asked to read out loud different types of text (words, sentence, passage) using their normal voice and then while sounding as ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ as possible. Overall, the results show that both men and women raised their F0 and Fi when feminising their voice, and lowered their F0 and Fi when masculinising their voice. Conclusions/Significance These observations suggest that adult speakers are capable of spontaneous glottal and vocal tract length adjustments to express masculinity and femininity in their voice. These results point to a “gender code”, where speakers make a conventionalized use of the existing sex dimorphism to vary the expression of their gender and gender-related attributes.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

PLoS ONE

ISSN

1932-6203

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Issue

2

Volume

7

Article number

e31353

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-10-30

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-03-13

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