Throw out your hands!! Stick out your tush!! Hands on your hips Give them a push!! You'll be surprised You're doing the French Mistake!! (video)
Posted on 05/21/2011 8:01:50 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
FRIDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- For the average listener, the vowel sounds in an unfamiliar voice quickly give away the speaker's sexual orientation, a new study finds.
"I'm not sure what exactly the listeners are responding to in the vowel," study lead author Erik C. Tracy, a cognitive psychologist at Ohio State University, said in a news release from the American Institute of Physics. "Other researchers have done various acoustic analyses to understand why gay and heterosexual men produce vowels differently. Whatever this difference is, it seems that listeners are using it to make this sexual orientation decision."
When hearing an unfamiliar voice at the other end of the phone line, most people instantly judge the stranger's characteristics based on how they speak, and the new study suggests listeners are usually pretty accurate in their determination.
"This is a phenomenon that occurs every day," Tracy said. "We are constantly speaking with people we don't know on our phones, and just from this conversation, we might be able to identify personal characteristics about that person, such as their gender, age, race or sexual orientation."
In order to understand how this process works, Tracy and a colleague focused on one characteristic -- sexual orientation. They asked seven gay and seven heterosexual males to record single-syllable words (including "mass," "food" and "sell") and then played the recordings for listeners. The study participants were then asked to identify the sexual orientation of the speakers when hearing only the first letter sound of those words, the first two letter sounds, or the entire words.
The listeners were unable to determine the sexual orientation after hearing the sound of the first letter in the spoken word, for example, just the "m" sound in the word "mass." But, "when presented with the first two letter sounds [for example "ma"], listeners were 75 percent accurate," Tracy said. "We believe that listeners are using the acoustic information contained in vowels to make this sexual orientation decision," he explained.
The findings are scheduled to be presented May 23 in Seattle at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Experts note that research presented at meetings has not been subjected to the same type of rigorous scrutiny given to research published in peer-reviewed medical journals.
More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about sexual orientation.
Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
PING!
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain...
I think that's because gays tend to put more into the "a" hole.
Finally a scientific explanation for gaydar.
And here all this time I was listening for the lisp....
Well, this is showing that even though liberals lecture us about not adhering to stereotypes, that indeed stereotypes have some basis in fact.
The “lisping” in pronunciation is a characteristic of male homosexuals. A stereotype, but one which arose for a reason.
How many “straight” females wear flannel shirts, and have mannish haircuts? Another stereotype.
Anybody check out Obamas vowel sounds?
Anybody check out Obamas vowel sounds?
F*** You I’m workin’ for Mel Brooks!
Gays who are clannish talk with a lisp-It’s one way they ID each other.
I suppose that this is some of the research that Obama wants the gov to continue to finance with our money.
Bye the bye, is April Lexington referencing the first battle of the Revolutionary War, April 19, 1775?
Which brings me to this question: why are TV-show lesbians so pretty?
I can’t get past the sibilant s.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.