Gender identity is indexed and perceived in speech

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 13; no. 12; p. e0209226
• Main Authors: Weirich, Melanie, Simpson, Adrian P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 20.12.2018; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Acoustic properties; Acoustics; Adult; Analysis; Auditory Perception; Behavior; Biology and Life Sciences; Children & youth; Female; Females; Femininity; Fundamental frequency; Gays & lesbians; Gender aspects; Gender differences; Gender Identity; German language; Germany; Heterosexuality; Humans; Judgment; Language; Linguistics; Listening; Male; Males; Masculinity; Parameters; People and Places; Perception; Perception (Psychology); Phonetics; Phonology; Physical Sciences; Physiology; Resonant frequencies; Self concept; Self evaluation; Self Report; Sexual orientation; Social Sciences; Speaking; Speech; Speech Acoustics; Speech Perception; Speech production; Studies; Voice Quality; Vowels; Women; Young Adult; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209226

This study investigates a possible relationship between perceived and self-ascribed gender identity and the respective acoustic correlates in a group of young heterosexual adult speakers. For the production study, a sample of 37 German speaking subjects (20 males, 17 females) filled out a questionnaire to assess their self-ascribed masculinity/femininity on two scales. A range of acoustic parameters (acoustic vowel space size, fundamental frequency, sibilant spectral characteristics) were measured in speech collected from a picture describing task. Results show that male speakers judging themselves to be less masculine exhibited larger vowel spaces and higher average fundamental frequency.For the perception experiment, a group of 21 listeners (11 males, 10 females) judged masculinity of single word male stimuli drawn from the collected speech sample. A significant correlation between speakers' self-ascribed and listeners' attributed gender identity was found with a stronger relationship for female listeners. Acoustic parameters used by listeners to attribute gender identity include those used by speakers to index masculinity/femininity.The investigation demonstrates the importance of including self-ascribed gender identity as a potential source of inter-speaker variation in speech production and perception even in a sample of heterosexual adult speakers.