Prior adaptation to male (or female) voices causes androgynous voices to be perceived as more female (or male). Using a selective adaptation paradigm the authors investigate the relative impact of the vocal fold vibration rate (F0) and timbre (operationally in this paper as characteristics that differentiate two voices of the same F0 and loudness) on this basic voice gender aftereffect. TANDEM-STRAIGHT was used to morph between 10 pairs of male and female speakers uttering 2 different vowel-consonant-vowel sequences (20 continua). Adaptor stimuli had one parameter (either F0 or timbre) set at a clearly male or female level, while the other parameter was set at an androgynous level, as determined by an independent set of listeners. Compared to a control adaptation condition (in which both F0 and timbre were clearly male or female), aftereffects were clearly reduced in both F0 and timbre adaptation conditions. Critically, larger aftereffects were found after timbre adaptation (comprising androgynous F0) compared to F0 adaptation (comprising an androgynous timbre). Together these results suggest that timbre plays a larger role than F0 in voice gender adaptation. Finally, the authors found some evidence that individual differences among listeners reflect in part pre-experimental contact to male and female voices.
References
1.
Andrews
, M. L.
, and Schmidt
, C. P.
(1997
). “Gender presentation: Perceptual and acoustical analyses of voice
,” J. Voice
11
(3
), 307
–313
.2.
Anstis
, S.
, Verstraten
, F. A. J.
, and Mather
, G.
(1998
). “The motion aftereffect
,” Trends Cogn. Sci.
2
(3
), 111
–117
.3.
Assmann
, P. F.
, Dembling
, S.
, and Nearey
, T. M.
(2006
). “Effects of frequency shifts on perceived naturalness and gender information in speech
,” in Proceedings of Interspeech 2006, ICSLP
, Pittsburg, PA
, pp. 17
–21
.4.
Bestelmeyer
, P. E.
, Rouger
, J.
, DeBruine
, L. M.
, and Belin
, P.
(2010
). “Auditory adaptation in vocal affect perception
,” Cognit.
117
(2
), 217
–223
.5.
Boersma
, P.
, and Weenink
, D.
(2011
). “Praat: Doing phonetics by computer
” (Version 5.1.23) [Computer Software]. Retrieved from http://www.praat.org/ (Last viewed October 5, 2013).6.
Charest
, I.
, Pernet
, C.
, Latinus
, M.
, Crabbe
, F.
, and Belin
, P.
(2013
). “Cerebral processing of voice gender studied using a continuous carryover fMRI design
,” Cereb, Cortex
23
(4
), 958
–966
.7.
Cotral-Labor-GmbH.
(2013
). “Audiotest—Schnellhörtest von COTRAL
” (Version 1.02B) [Computer Software]. Saarbrücken, Germany: Cotral Labor GmbH. Retrieved from www.cotral.com/Hoertest/Hoertest.exe (Last viewed October 5, 2013).8.
Eckert
, P.
(2014
). “The problem with binaries: Coding for gender and sexuality
,” Lang. Linguist. Compass
8
(11
), 529
–535
.9.
Gelfer
, M. P.
, and Mikos
, V. A.
(2005
). “The relative contributions of speaking fundamental frequency and formant frequencies to gender identification based on isolated vowels
,” J. Voice
19
(4
), 544
–554
.10.
Hanson
, H. M.
, and Chuang
, E. S.
(1999
). “Glottal characteristics of male speakers: Acoustic correlates and comparison with female data
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
106
(2
), 1064
–1077
.11.
Hillenbrand
, J.
, and Clark
, M. J.
(2009
). “The role of f0 and formant frequencies in distinguishing the voices of men and women
,” Attn. Percept. Psychophys.
71
(5
), 1150
–1166
.12.
Hillenbrand
, J.
, Cleveland
, R. A.
, and Erickson
, R. L.
(1994
). “Acoustic correlates of breathy vocal quality
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
37
(4
), 769
–778
.13.
Honorof
, D. N.
, and Whalen
, D. H.
(2010
). “Identification of speaker sex from one vowel across a range of fundamental frequencies
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
128
(5
), 3095
–3104
.14.
Hubbard
, D. J.
, and Assmann
, P. F.
(2013
). “Perceptual adaptation to gender and expressive properties in speech: The role of fundamental frequency
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
133
(4
), 2367
–2376
.15.
Huynh
, H.
, and Feldt
, L.
(1976
). “Estimation of the box correction for degrees of freedom from sample data in randomized block and split-plot designs
,” J. Ed. Stat.
1
, 69
–82
.16.
Ingemann
, F.
(1968
). “Identification of speakers sex from voiceless fricatives
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
44
(4
), 1142
–1144
.17.
Johnson
, K.
(2006
). “Resonance in an exemplar-based lexicon: The emergence of social identity and phonology
,” J. Phonetics
34
(4
), 485
–499
.18.
Kawahara
, H.
, Masuda-Katsuse
, I.
, and de Cheveigne
, A.
(1999
). “Restructuring speech representations using a pitch-adaptive time-frequency smoothing and an instantaneous-frequency-based F0 extraction: Possible role of a repetitive structure in sounds
,” Speech Commun.
27
(3–4
), 187
–207
.19.
Kawahara
, H.
, Morise
, M.
, Takahashi
, T.
, Nisimura
, R.
, Irino
, T.
, and Banno
, H.
(2008
). “TANDEM-STRAIGHT: A temporally stable power spectral representation for periodic signals and applications to interference-free spectrum, F0, and aperiodicity estimation
,” in Proceedings of the IEEE 2008 ICASSP
, Las Vegas, NV
, pp. 3933
–3936
.20.
Klatt
, D. H.
, and Klatt
, L. C.
(1990
). “Analysis, synthesis, and perception of voice quality variations among female and male talkers
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
87
(2
), 820
–857
.21.
Lass
, N. J.
, Hughes
, K. R.
, Bowyer
, M. D.
, Waters
, L. T.
, and Bourne
, V. T.
(1976
). “Speaker sex identification from voiced, whispered, and filtered isolated vowels
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
59
(3
), 675
–678
.22.
Latinus
, M.
, and Belin
, P.
(2011
). “Anti-voice adaptation suggests prototype-based coding of voice identity
,” Front. Psychol.
2
, 1
–12
.23.
Latinus
, M.
, and Belin
, P.
(2012
). “Perceptual auditory aftereffects on voice identity using brief vowel stimuli
,” PLoS One
7
(7
), 1
–7
.24.
Latinus
, M.
, and Taylor
, M. J.
(2012
). “Discriminating male and female voices: Differentiating pitch and gender
,” Brain Topo.
25
(2
), 194
–204
.25.
Lattner
, S.
, Meyer
, M. E.
, and Friederici
, A. D.
(2005
). “Voice perception: Sex, pitch, and the right hemisphere
,” Human Brain Map.
24
(1
), 11
–20
.26.
Mullennix
, J. W.
, Johnson
, K. A.
, Topcu-Durgun
, M.
, and Farnsworth
, L. M.
(1995
). “The perceptual representation of voice gender
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
98
(6
), 3080
–3095
.26.
Owren
, M. J.
, Berkowitz
, M.
, and Bachorowski
, J. A.
(2007
). “Listeners judge talker sex more efficiently from male than from female vowels
,” Percept. Psychophys.
69
, 930
–941
.27.
Pellicano
, E.
, Jeffery
, L.
, Burr
, D.
, and Rhodes
, G.
(2007
). “Abnormal adaptive face-coding mechanisms in children with autism spectrum disorder
,” Curr. Biol.
17
(17
), 1508
–1512
.28.
Pernet
, C. R.
, and Belin
, P.
(2012
). “The role of pitch and timbre in voice gender categorization
,” Front. Psychol.
3
, 1
–11
.29.
Peterson
, G. E.
, and Barney
, H. L.
(1951
). “Control methods used in a study of the vowels
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
23
(1
), 148
–148
.30.
Reinfeldt
, S.
, Ostli
, P.
, Hakansson
, B.
, and Stenfelt
, S.
(2010
). “Hearing one's own voice during phoneme vocalization—Transmission by air and bone conduction
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
128
(2
), 751
–762
.31.
Schwartz
, M. F.
(1968
). “Identification of speaker sex from isolated voiceless fricatives
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
43
(5
), 1178
–1179
.32.
Schwartz
, M. F.
(1970
). “Power spectral density measurements of oral and whispered speech
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
13
(2
), 445
–446
.33.
Schweinberger
, S. R.
, Casper
, C.
, Hauthal
, N.
, Kaufmann
, J. M.
, Kawahara
, H.
, Kloth
, N.
, Robertson
, D. M. C.
, Simpson
, A. P.
, and Zäske
, R.
(2008
). “Auditory adaptation in voice perception
,” Curr. Biol.
18
(9
), 684
–688
.34.
Schweinberger
, S. R.
, Kawahara
, H.
, Simpson
, A. P.
, Zäske
, R.
, and Skuk
, V.
(2014
). “Speaker perception
,” Wiley Interdiscipl. Rev.: Cognit. Sci.
5
(1
), 15
–25
.35.
Schweinberger
, S. R.
, Walther
, C.
, Zäske
, R.
, and Kovacs
, G.
(2011
). “Neural correlates of adaptation to voice identity
,” Brit. J. Psychol.
102
, 748
–764
.36.
Sharifzadeh
, H. R.
, McLoughlin
, I. V.
, and Russell
, M. J.
(2012
). “A comprehensive vowel space for whispered speech
,” J. Voice
26
(2
), E49
–E56
.37.
Simpson
, A. P.
(2009
). “Phonetic differences between male and female speech
,” Lang. Linguist. Compass
3
(2
), 621
–640
.38.
Simpson
, A. P.
(2012
). “The first and second harmonics should not be used to measure breathiness in male and female voices
,” J. Phonetics
40
(3
), 477
–490
.39.
Skuk
, V. G.
, and Schweinberger
, S. R.
(2013a
). “Adaptation aftereffects in vocal emotion perception elicited by expressive faces and voices
,” PLoS One
8
(11
), e81691
.40.
Skuk
, V. G.
, and Schweinberger
, S. R.
(2013b
). “Gender differences in familiar voice identification
,” Hear. Res.
296
, 131
–140
.41.
Skuk
, V. G.
, and Schweinberger
, S. R.
(2014
). “Influences of fundamental frequency, formant frequencies, aperiodicity and spectrum level on the perception of voice gender
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
57
, 285
–296
.42.
Smith
, D. R. R.
, Walters
, T. C.
, and Patterson
, R. D.
(2007
). “Discrimination of speaker sex and size when glottal-pulse rate and vocal-tract length are controlled
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
122
(6
), 3628
–3639
.43.
Tartter
, V. C.
(1989
). “What's in a whisper?
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
86
(5
), 1678
–1683
.44.
Titze
, I. R.
(1989
). “Physiologic and acoustic differences between male and female voices
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
85
(4
), 1699
–1707
.45.
Vorperian
, H. K.
, Kent
, R. D.
, Lindstrom
, M. J.
, Kalina
, C. M.
, Gentry
, L. R.
, and Yandell
, B. S.
(2005
). “Development of vocal tract length during earl childhood: A magnetic resonance imaging study
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
117
(1
), 338
–350
.46.
Vukovic
, J.
, Jones
, B. C.
, DeBruine
, L.
, Feinberg
, D. R.
, Smith
, F. G.
, Little
, A. C.
, Welling
, L. L. M.
, and Main
, J.
(2010
). “Women's own voice pitch predicts their preferences for masculinity in men's voices
,” Behav. Ecol.
21
(4
), 767
–772
.47.
Webster
, M. A.
, Kaping
, D.
, Mizokami
, Y.
, and Duhamel
, P.
(2004
). “Adaptation to natural facial categories
,” Nature
428
(6982
), 557
–561
.48.
Webster
, M. A.
, and MacLin
, O. H.
(1999
). “Figural aftereffects in the perception of faces
,” Psychon. B Rev.
6
(4
), 647
–653
.49.
Whiteside
, S. P.
(1998
). “The identification of a speaker's sex from synthesized vowels
,” Percept. Motor Skills
87
(2
), 595
–600
.50.
Zäske
, R.
, Schweinberger
, S. R.
, Kaufmann
, J. M.
, and Kawahara
, H.
(2009
). “In the ear of the beholder: Neural correlates of adaptation to voice gender
,” Eur. J. Neurosci.
30
(3
), 527
–534
.51.
Zäske
, R.
, Schweinberger
, S. R.
, and Kawahara
, H.
(2010
). “Voice aftereffects of adaptation to speaker identity
,” Hear. Res.
268
(1–2
), 38
–45
.© 2015 Acoustical Society of America.
2015
Acoustical Society of America
You do not currently have access to this content.
