Short analysis of two phonetics articles (0)

Can you tell by a single sound I make, whether I am straight, bi or gay?
As ridiculous as it might sound and casting aside all stereotypes, it actually seems possible. Unbelievable? Well, sociolinguistics, sociopathology, sociophonetics are all very fascinating subjects . Never thought a single word or a sound you make could tell random strangers who you are? Well, prepare to be convinced otherwise. (Well, not solely by these two articles or my short conclusions, of course , it is a very wide field and there is yet much research to be done .)
Anyhow, here I have found two research articles, both dealing with whether it is possible to distinguish someone 's sexual identity solely based upon a few words , or much less, a single phone . As it turns out, it is. How it is done, is also shown ( although I must admit that my current education did not allow me to understand all the details of the methods used) and a lot of research poured into finding out what it is that random people find "sounding gay" or "sounding heterosexual".
The articles have a nine year gap, and the newer, written 2015 also mentions Munson et al's research several times . One of the main differences between the researches is that while Munson et al included bisexual men and women , and also Lesbians, Erik.C. Tracy worked solely with the topic of gay men. Both, however , did their research on American English .
As to the conclusions:
* Yes, listeners can distinguish between LGB and heterosexual men and women.
* Listeners rely more on vowels than consonants, and of those, only few.
* The /s/ is the most important consonant when making a judgment. (also deriving from this topic, see "gay lisp" – there were some excellent articles about that, too, but unfortunately they were about a research done in Belgium ). But only if you are male . (Apparently there is a "gay lisp", but no "lesbian lisp", although that would sound much better.)
* Higher frequency in men and lower in women's case makes the listeners distinguish them as part of the LGB group. So does more technical or sophisticated way of speech . (From previous investigations where larger 15-90 s texts were used.)
All in all, I am still awed and would really like to know , how and why this is possible. (You've heard me speak , which group would you put me into? And no cheating! :D)
The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men’s sexual orientation from read speech
Authors : Benjamin Munson _, Elizabeth C. McDonald, Nancy L. DeBoe, Aubrey R. White
2006
Goal : Three experiments examined acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the speech of Gay; Lesbian; Bisexual (GLB) and heterosexual people.
Experiment 1 examined the acoustic characteristics of single words produced by both men and women who identified as either GLB or heterosexual. The largest differences between GLB and heterosexual women were in the F1 frequency of /e/ and the F2 frequency of /oR/. The largest differences between the groups of men were in the F1 frequency of /e/ and /a/, and the spectral skewness of the fricative /s/.
Experiment 2 showed that listeners’ judgments of perceived sexual orientation were related to the acoustic parameters found to differ in Experiment 1: Listeners showed greater sensitivity to differences in men’s sexual orientation when listening to words containing low front vowels than when listening to words containing back vowels. Moreover , Regression analyses showed that judgments of men’s sexual orientation were influenced by /s/ skewness, the F1 frequency of low front vowels, and the F2 frequency of back vowels. Judgments of women’s sexual orientation were predicted most strongly by the F1 frequency of low front vowels and the F2 frequency of back vowels.
Experiment 3 showed that the judgments of perceived sexual orientation collected in Experiment 2 were strongly related to judgments of perceived height and perceived speech clarity made by independent groups of listeners.
Conclusion: Taken together, the results provide a more comprehensive picture of the acoustic and perceptual characteristics of GLB speech styles than has been provided by previous research. Moreover, the results of Experiment 3 suggest that listeners’ percepts of GLB speech styles may be related to their perception of other speech characteristics.
Judgments of self-identified gay and heterosexual male speakers: Which phonemes are most salient in determining sexual orientation?
Authors: Erik C. Tracy, Sierra A. Bainter, Nicholas P. Satariano
2015
Goal: "While numerous studies have demonstrated that a male speaker's sexual orientation can be identified from relatively long passages of speech, few studies have evaluated whether listeners can determine sexual orientation when presented with word- length stimuli." Also, if listeners form their judgements based on a phoneme , such as vowel or consonant, or multiple phonemes, such and vowel and consonant.
Experiment 1: purpose in Experiment 1 was to determine whether listeners can distinguish between self-identified gay and heterosexual male speakers of American English upon hearing word-length stimuli.
Experiment 2: The purpose of Experiment 2 was to determine which phonemes, such as a vowel or consonant, listeners rely on when forming their sexual orientation judgments. Furthermore , in this experiment, we investigated whether listeners could differentiate between self-identified gay and heterosexual male speakers of American English upon hearing a single phoneme. We can summarize our results with two main conclusions. First , listeners can distinguish between highly characteristic gay and heterosexual speakers of American English upon hearing a phoneme. Second, listeners primarily rely on vowels to form their judgments, but they may also rely on some consonants to a lesser extent.
Experiment 3: The purpose of Experiment 3 was to determine whether listeners tended to rely on multiple acoustic cues when forming their sexual orientation judgments. The results suggest that listeners in this experiment primarily relied on vowels when forming their sexual orientation judgment. These results are consistent with the results from both Experiment 2 and the work of Munson et al. (2006). It can be argued that listeners primarily rely on vowels, either individually or within the context of an utterance, to distinguish between gay and heterosexual male speakers.
Conclusion: "In this study , we first found that listeners can distinguish between self-identified gay and heterosexual speakers of American English upon hearing word-length stimuli. Extended results in a separate experiment to demonstrate that listeners primarily rely on vowels, and to some extent consonants, when forming their judgments. /.../ In a follow-up experiment we found evidence that listeners' judgments improved if they were presented with multiply phonemes, such as a vowel and /s/."
References:
"The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men’s sexual orientation from read speech." - Authors: Benjamin Munson, Elizabeth C. McDonald, Nancy L. DeBoe, Aubrey R. White. Journal of Phonetics Volume 34, Issue 2, April 2006, Pages 202–240
Online access : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095447005000379 6.12.2015
"Judgments of self-identified gay and heterosexual male speakers: Which phonemes are most salient in determining sexual orientation?" Authors: Erik C. Tracy, Sierra A. Bainter, Nicholas P. Satariano. 2015 September, Acoustical Society of America, Volume 138, Issue 3
Online access: http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/138/3/10.1121/1.4933884 6.12.2015