k*****e
发帖数: 22013 | 1 Straight or Gay? Vowels in Speech May Give it Away
Study found that strangers quickly picked up on sexual orientation via vocal
cues
Posted: May 20, 2011
FRIDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- For the average listener, the vowel
sounds in an unfamiliar voice quickly give away the speaker's sexual
orientation, a new study finds.
"I'm not sure what exactly the listeners are responding to in the vowel,"
study lead author Erik C. Tracy, a cognitive psychologist at Ohio State
University, said in a news release from the American Institute of Physics. "
Other researchers have done various acoustic analyses to understand why gay
and heterosexual men produce vowels differently. Whatever this difference is
, it seems that listeners are using it to make this sexual orientation
decision."
When hearing an unfamiliar voice at the other end of the phone line, most
people instantly judge the stranger's characteristics based on how they
speak, and the new study suggests listeners are usually pretty accurate in
their determination.
"This is a phenomenon that occurs every day," Tracy said. "We are constantly
speaking with people we don't know on our phones, and just from this
conversation, we might be able to identify personal characteristics about
that person, such as their gender, age, race or sexual orientation."
In order to understand how this process works, Tracy and a colleague focused
on one characteristic -- sexual orientation. They asked seven gay and seven
heterosexual males to record single-syllable words (including "mass," "food
" and "sell") and then played the recordings for listeners. The study
participants were then asked to identify the sexual orientation of the
speakers when hearing only the first letter sound of those words, the first
two letter sounds, or the entire words.
The listeners were unable to determine the sexual orientation after hearing
the sound of the first letter in the spoken word, for example, just the "m"
sound in the word "mass." But, "when presented with the first two letter
sounds [for example "ma"], listeners were 75 percent accurate," Tracy said.
"We believe that listeners are using the acoustic information contained in
vowels to make this sexual orientation decision," he explained.
The findings are scheduled to be presented May 23 in Seattle at the meeting
of the Acoustical Society of America. Experts note that research presented
at meetings has not been subjected to the same type of rigorous scrutiny
given to research published in peer-reviewed medical journals.
More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about sexual orientation.
Copyright ? 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved. | k*****e
发帖数: 22013 | 2 我还以为这文章教你怎么辨认gay口音呢。。。
vocal
"
【在 k*****e 的大作中提到】
: Straight or Gay? Vowels in Speech May Give it Away
: Study found that strangers quickly picked up on sexual orientation via vocal
: cues
: Posted: May 20, 2011
: FRIDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- For the average listener, the vowel
: sounds in an unfamiliar voice quickly give away the speaker's sexual
: orientation, a new study finds.
: "I'm not sure what exactly the listeners are responding to in the vowel,"
: study lead author Erik C. Tracy, a cognitive psychologist at Ohio State
: University, said in a news release from the American Institute of Physics. "
|
|
