Dear Sir or Madam

[differenceblog]

Hearing a stranger's voice, we tend to automatically assign the voice a gender. Belin et al (2004) suggest that perception of identity data gleaned from vocal cues may have processing similar to that for face recognition. While the perception of the speaker gender has often been characterized as a "right-brain" function, Schirmer and Kotz (2006) point out that neuroimaging studies fail to provide consistent support for this theory, and suggest a bilateral model for vocal processing on several facets of information. Lee et al (2000) found that rater identification of a computer-generated voice's gender was reliable between raters, and also that people tended to "like" voices of their own gender better, but raters of both sexes found male voices more "convincing." Interestingly, Lattner et al (2006) found stronger brain activation in reaction to female and artificially produced voices than in reaction to male voices. This effect was true for both male and female listeners equally.

I can't speak to how differently people react to my voice since it changed. My confidence and vocal habits have also changed enough through practice that there are too many confounds to make a conclusion, even if I had noticed a difference. However, one thing that's easy to notice is the way people identify my gender over the phone. I got "ma'amed" this morning for the first time in a while, and it amused me, because I'm aware that I don't get read as female over the phone any more often than any of my other male friends with tenor voices.