Can acoustic measurements predict gender perception in the voice?

PurposeTo determine if there is an association between vocal gender presentation and the gender and context of the listener.MethodQuantitative and transversal study. 47 speakers of Brazilian Portuguese of different genders were recorded. Recordings included sustained vowel emission, connected speech, and the expressive recital of a poem. Subsequently, four scripts were used in Praat to extract 16 acoustic measurements related to prosody. Voices underwent Auditory-Perceptual Assessment (APA) of the gender presentation by 236 people [65 speech and language pathologist (SLP) with experience in the area of the voice (SLP), 101 cisgender people (CG), and 70 transgender and non-binary people (TNB)]. Gender presentation was evaluated by visual analogue scale. Agreement analyses were executed among quantitative variables and multiple linear regression models were generated to predict APA, taking the judge context/gender and speaker gender into consideration.ResultsAcoustic analysis revealed that cis and transgender women had higher median fundamental frequency (fo) values than other genders. Cisgender women exhibited greater breathiness, while cisgender men showed more vocal quality deviations. In terms of APA, significant differences were observed among judge groups: SLP judged vowel samples differently from other groups, and TNB judged speech samples differently (both pConclusionsThere is an association between the perception of gender presentation in the voice and the gender or context of the listener and the speaker. Transgender and non-binary judges diverged to a higher degree from cisgender and SLP judges. Compared to the evaluation of cisgender speakers, all judge groups used a greater number of acoustic measurements when analyzing the speech of transgender and non-binary individuals in the poem recital samples.