Differences in Sibilant Perception between Gender Expansive and Cisgender Individuals

Area of Science:

• Sociophonetics
• Speech Perception
• Gender Studies

Background:

• Voice gender cues influence speaker gender perception and phoneme categorization.
• Gender expansive individuals show different voice gender perception compared to cisgender individuals.
• Limited research exists on how gender expansive people categorize sibilants.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate sibilant categorization by gender expansive individuals.
• To explore differences in sibilant perception between cisgender and gender expansive people.
• To examine the impact of perceived voice gender on sibilant categorization.

Main Methods:

• Recruitment of participants across all genders.
• Utilized a sibilant categorization task with synthetic voices.
• Analysis of perception differences based on participant gender identity.

Main Results:

• Cisgender and gender expansive participants demonstrated distinct synthetic sibilant perceptions.
• Perception differences were most pronounced when listening to a "nonbinary" synthetic voice.
• This suggests voice gender influences sibilant categorization across gender identities.

Conclusions:

• Gender expansive individuals' sibilant perception differs from cisgender individuals.
• Findings highlight the need for inclusive speech technology design.
• Implications for nonbinary individuals using speech-generating devices are significant.