Speaker Age Estimation by Musicians and Non-musicians
Ákos Gocsál · Repository of the Academy's Library (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) · 2018
Speaker age estimation is one of the most commonly researched fields in the domain of social perception based on voice. Previous findings confirm a strong correlation between the estimated and calendar age of speakers, however, younger adult speakers are usually perceived to be older, while older speakers are thought to be younger than their actual age. Effects of listener factors, such as age and gender have also been researched. The purpose of the present study is to examine if a more sophisticated auditory mechanism, which can be attributed to music training, results in more accuracy in speaker age estimation. The present research found correlation coefficients between calendar ages and mean estimated ages comparable to those reported in the literature, and musicianship and listener gender were not proven to have a significant effect on age estimations. Linear mixed models, implemented on three age groups, revealed some marginal differences between musicians and non-musicians, implying musicians’ more accurate age estimations in some cases.