The influence of actual and imputed talker gender on fricative perception, revisited (L)

To examine the role of perceived gender on fricative identification, a study was conducted in which listeners identified /s/-/∫/ and /s/-/θ/ continua combined with vowels produced by a man and a woman. These were acoustically modified to be consistent with different-sized vocal tracts (VT), and were presented with pictures of men or women. Listeners identified more tokens of /s/ in the /s/-/∫/ and more tokens of /θ/ in the /s/-/θ/ continuum when these sounds were combined with men's vowels, with vowels consistent with a 17 cm VT, and with pictures of men. Results support the hypothesis that listeners incorporate information about talker gender during fricative perception.