Perception of sexual orientation through speech: Generational differences
Lily Obeda, Melanie Putman, Benjamin Munson · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2018
Previous research has shown that listeners can perceive talkers' sexual orientation at a greater than chance levels from the acoustic characteristics of their speech (Munson et al., J. Phonetics [2006]). Recently, Obeda and Munson (2018, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 143, 1924) compared the perception of 44 gay, lesbian, and heterosexual people's sexual orientation through speech by the young adults reported in Munson et al. 2006 (whose data were collected in 2003) to a group of young adults tested in 2018. The new listeners were matched in age to the 2003 listeners. A number of differences between the two cohorts were found. In particular, the 2018 listeners were less willing to judge heterosexual women's speech as 'sounding heterosexual'. In this presentation, we compare both sets of data to the performance of a new set of listeners who are matched in birth year to the 2003 listeners, and who are currently 33–48 years old. Collection of those data is ongoing. Comparing this new group to the two other groups will allow us to examine whether the apparent generational change observed by Obeda and Munson has led listeners like those in 2003 to reevaluate their perception of sexual orientation through speech in 2018.