Perceived gender in clear and conversational speech

Much of our understanding of gender perception in voice and speech is based on sustained vowels or single words, which eliminates temporal, prosodic, and articulatory cues available in more natural, connected speech. Further, while many studies have examined acoustic and sociolinguistic differences between male and female voices, the relationship between talker speaking style and perception of gender has not yet been explored. Clear speech, adopted by talkers who perceive some barrier to effective communication, is one such speaking style change. The present study examines the relationship between clear speech and talker gender perception. Clear and conversational neutral sentences produced by all 41 talkers from the Ferguson Clear Speech Database (Ferguson, 2004) were presented to young listeners with normal hearing. They rated the gender of the talker using a visual analog scale with endpoints labeled masculine and feminine, chosen to capture small within-category changes in perceived gender. Acoustic analyses of these sentences, including fundamental frequency, formant frequencies, speaking rate, fundamental frequency range, and cepstral peak prominence will be undertaken to determine the relationship between acoustic correlates of clear speech and listener ratings of femininity or masculinity. Applications to transgender voice therapy will be discussed.

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