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Control of voice gender in pre-pubertal children
Valentina Cartei1, Wind Cowles, Robin Banerjee
1School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
The British Journal of Developmental Psychology
|December 31, 2013
Summary
Children can adjust their voices to sound more masculine or feminine, even before puberty. This vocal behavior, rather than physical differences, may explain how young children express gender through speech.
Area of Science:
- Speech acoustics
- Developmental psychology
- Childhood gender expression
Background:
- Adults can discern child speaker gender from voice by age 4.
- Pre-pubertal vocal tract anatomy shows minimal sex dimorphism.
- Children's vocal gender expression may involve learned behaviors.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate if pre-pubertal children regulate vocal behavior for gender expression.
- Analyze acoustic properties of children's voices when speaking normally versus adopting gendered speech styles.
Main Methods:
- Acoustic analysis of utterances from 34 children aged 6-9 years.
- Comparison of voice recordings made in normal speech and when prompted to speak 'like a boy' or 'like a girl'.
Main Results:
- Statistically significant shifts in fundamental frequency (pitch) were observed.
- Formant frequency values also shifted towards adult sex-dimorphic patterns.
- Children actively modified vocal parameters when instructed.
Conclusions:
- Pre-pubertal children demonstrate vocal control to align with gendered expectations.
- Vocal behavior regulation plays a role in gender expression in young children.
- Further research is needed on the interplay of vocal behavior and gender identity in childhood.
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