Speakers' Sex Differences in Voice Onset Time: Some Preliminary Findings

This study presents a brief investigation into sex differences of speakers in the voice onset time of English plosives that are stressed in both word-initial and prevocalic position. 72 short phrases were presented to 5 men (range 25 to 37 years, mean age 34.2 yr.) and five women speakers (range 28 to 38 years, mean 32.6 yr.). Analysis showed that the women as speakers had on average, longer voice onset time values than their male peers.

[1]  J. Perkell,et al.  Glottal airflow and transglottal air pressure measurements for male and female speakers in soft, normal, and loud voice. , 1988, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[2]  S. Linville,et al.  Acoustic characteristics of perceived versus actual vocal age in controlled phonation by adult females. , 1985, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[3]  D G Childers,et al.  Gender recognition from speech. Part II: Fine analysis. , 1991, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[4]  Raymond D. Kent,et al.  Acoustic patterns of apraxia of speech. , 1983, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[5]  Inger Karlsson Modelling voice variations in female speech synthesis , 1992, Speech Commun..

[6]  Bradford L. Swartz,et al.  Gender Difference in Voice Onset Time , 1992 .

[7]  Caroline G. Henton,et al.  A comparative study of phonetic sex-specific differences across languages , 1986 .

[8]  D. Childers,et al.  Gender recognition from speech. Part I: Coarse analysis. , 1991, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[9]  D Byrd,et al.  Preliminary results on speaker-dependent variation in the TIMIT database. , 1992, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[10]  M. Haggard,et al.  Pitch as a voicing cue. , 1970, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[11]  L. Lisker,et al.  A Cross-Language Study of Voicing in Initial Stops: Acoustical Measurements , 1964 .

[12]  A. Liberman,et al.  Some Cues for the Distinction Between Voiced and Voiceless Stops in Initial Position , 1957 .

[13]  Katherine S. Harris,et al.  Temporal coordination of phonation and articulation in a case of verbal apraxia: A voice onset time study , 1978, Brain and Language.

[14]  R O Coleman,et al.  A comparison of the contributions of two voice quality characteristics to the perception of maleness and femaleness in the voice. , 1976, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[15]  Dani Byrd,et al.  Relations of sex and dialect to reduction , 1994, Speech Communication.

[16]  Caroline G. Henton,et al.  Breathiness in normal female speech: Inefficiency versus desirability , 1985 .

[17]  S. Sasanuma,et al.  Voice onset time characteristics in apraxia of speech , 1982, Brain and Language.

[18]  D. Klatt Voice onset time, frication, and aspiration in word-initial consonant clusters. , 1975, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[19]  T Murry,et al.  Multidimensional analysis of male and female voices. , 1980, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[20]  Sandra P. Whiteside,et al.  Temporal-based acoustic-phonetic patterns in read speech: some evidence for speaker sex differences , 1996, Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

[21]  B H Repp,et al.  Relative Amplitude of Aspiration Noise as a Voicing Cue for Syllable-Initial Stop Consonants , 1979, Language and speech.

[22]  J E Flege,et al.  Linguistic and Developmental Effects on the Production and Perception of Stop Consonants , 1986, Phonetica.

[23]  Marlys A. Macken,et al.  The acquisition of the voicing contrast in English: a study of voice onset time in word-initial stop consonants , 1980, Journal of Child Language.

[24]  R J Baken,et al.  Voice onset time in normal-aged population. , 1982, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[25]  Ignatius G. Mattingly,et al.  Speaker Variation and Vocal‐Tract Size , 1966 .

[26]  D. Klatt,et al.  Analysis, synthesis, and perception of voice quality variations among female and male talkers. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[27]  L. Lisker,et al.  Some Effects of Context On Voice Onset Time in English Stops , 1967, Language and speech.

[28]  C E Linke,et al.  A study of pitch characteristics of female voices and their relationship to vocal effectiveness. , 1973, Folia phoniatrica.

[29]  G. E. Peterson,et al.  Control Methods Used in a Study of the Vowels , 1951 .