Cues for speaker-sex identification
Karen L. Robertson · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1978
Studies emphasizing laryngeal fundamental as the cue for speaker sex do not account for the fact that in modal register there is a large range of f0 that is produceable by both sexes. Evidence that vocal tract resonance characteristics are a cue to speaker sex is presented. Listeners rated whispering voices on a confidence scale as to speaker-sex identification. A significant nonparametric correlation was found between a measure of vocal tract resonance characteristics and listener ratings. The fact that the male voice with the vocal tract resonance characteristics most like those of the females was the only voice not confidently and accurately identified and the fact that when the distinctly female and distinctly male voices were taken separately there was no significant correlation suggest that there is a cutoff point between what is considered female voice quality and male.