Still no comment.
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.
Dude. That’s a comedy site. It was written for laughs.
I am SO glad I read down the thread before posting that.... :)
“Which brings me to this question: why are TV-show lesbians so pretty?”
-
Related question, why is it that real-life lesbians contrary to gay Hollyweird propaganda, scowling, fat and frumpy?
Because they aren’t real lesbians?
So, what's the reason they speak with a lisp? That's always been a mystery to me.
Thick, sticky tongue.
Heh...
But, haven't you ever wondered why the hell they talk that way?
It's not exactly a lisp. It's a distinct accent or something. I can't describe it, but I know it when I hear it.
Still no comment.
The question never coalesced in my brain. I was just trying to imagine a reason after reading your post.
Depending on his audience, and whether it is a political speech, 0bama often sounds like Martin Luther King giving a stemwinder. Had to listen to MLK to pick it up.
I wonder if I can get the hattrick?
You did! Congratulations!
Keep up the good work...and keep making me laugh!
You are one funny...and very smart...dude.
And...you know it’s all about “me”. ;o)
Will do, ma’am.
Thank you for being smart, creative, and extremely funny.
More often than you know, you make my day.
So pretty people in Spain seldom get raind on?
So pretty people in Spain seldom get raind on?
So pretty people in Spain seldom get raind on?
I had a gay relative, and from listening to him and his gay friends there IS something in their manner of speaking which serves to pick out gays. This is an advantage to gays trying to make their orientation evident to other gays, so perhaps it's something in gay culture that's picked up.
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