Browsing by Subject "äänen feminiinisyys"

Aim of the study. The fundamental frequency of speech (f0), the fundamental frequency minimum and maximum (f0min-f0max) and the vowel formant frequencies (F1-F3) are acoustical elements that make the difference between the voice of a man and a woman. Making a solid judgment of ones gender based on his/hers voice is not easy, but based on the acoustical elements mentioned above it can be judged quite reliably. F0 is considered to be the best acoustical element in making gender judgments, but also F1-F3 and f0max-f0min have been proven to be important. No Finnish research has been made. The aim of this study was to gather data about acoustical properties (f0, f0min-f0max, F1-F3) of voice and investigate the correlation between the acoustical properties and perceived gender and voice femininity or masculinity. This study investigated also did the subjective evaluations and the listeners evaluations differ from each other. Methods. Ten female, nine men, three male-to-female transgender people and two female-to-male transgender people participated as speakers in this study. They evaluated subjectively did their voice sound like male or female and how feminine or masculine it sounded on a VAS scale. They also gave prolonged vowel, reading and spontaneous speech samples that were acoustically analysed. The vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ and two read sentences were collected into a listening test that was held for 25 people performing as listeners. They evaluated on a separate forms did the voice sound like male or female and how feminine or masculine it sounded on a VAS scale. Results. The men of this research had the lowest and the women the highest acoustical properties of voice (f0, f0min-max, F1-F3). Between all of the acoustical properties (except /i/ F2) of voice and evaluation of gender and voice masculinity or femininity there were statistically significant or very significant strong or very strong correlation. When the fundamental frequency was 153–244 Hz, the fundamental frequency minimum was 68–137 Hz and maximum was 233–359 Hz the voice was evaluated more often (over 50 % of the evaluations) as female voice and feminine. Also the higher the vowel formant frequencies were the more often the voice was evaluated as female and feminine. The listeners evaluated the reading speech very differently than the speakers evaluated their own speech. With the women's and men's gender judgments there was almost a 100 % agreement, but this was not the case with the transgender people. The listeners evaluations of the voice femininity or masculinity differed most of the time (75 %) statistically significantly from the speakers own evaluations.