Can We Perceive Gender from Children’s Voices?

Classification rates for individual talkers (ages 5-11), with numbers indicating talker age (males in circles). Voices in shaded quadrants were identified correctly based on both sentences and isolated syllables. CREDIT: Barreda and Assmann

WASHINGTON, November 23, 2021 — The perception of gender in children’s voices is of special interest to researchers, because voices of young boys and girls are very similar before the age of puberty. Adult male and female voices are often quite different acoustically, making gender…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Perception of gender in children’s voices
DOI: 10.1121/10.0006785

To Better Understand Speech, Focus on Who Is Talking

Seeing a talker’s face improves your ability to perceive speech, but only if the face and voice come from the same location in space. CREDIT: Justin Fleming

WASHINGTON, October 26, 2021 — Seeing a person’s face as we are talking to them greatly improves our ability to understand their speech. While previous studies indicate that the timing of words-to-mouth movements across the senses is critical to this audio-visual speech benefit, whether it also depends on…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Spatial alignment between faces and voices improves selective attention to audio-visual speech
DOI: 10.1121/10.0006415

Algorithm Finds Personalized Sound Zones in Cars for Driver, Passengers

Measured system in a car cabin. Credit: Lucas Vindrola

WASHINGTON, September 14, 2021 — Creating an individualized listening experience for each passenger has been an ambition for the auto industry for decades. The acoustically changing nature of the car cabin has hampered making…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Use of the filtered-x least-mean-squares algorithm to adapt personal sound zones in a car cabin
DOI: 10.1121/10.0005875

Voices of Reason? Study Links Acoustic Correlations, Gender to Vocal Appeal

This graphic illustrates the vowel space area from a single talker. Each peak corresponds to different vowel nuclei, and as speech increases in clarity, on average, the total area enclosed by these peaks becomes larger. CREDIT: University of California, Irvine; University of Utah

WASHINGTON, August 31, 2021 — What makes a voice attractive? The question is the subject of broad interest, with far-reaching implications in our personal lives, the workplace, and…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Examining vocal attractiveness through articulatory working space
DOI: 10.1121/10.0005730

Compact Speaker Systems Direct Sound Efficiently

A compact speaker system designed to maximize the amount of sound moving toward zero degrees and minimize the sound leakage elsewhere. CREDIT: Wang et al.

WASHINGTON, August 31, 2021 — As electronic devices decrease in size, their component parts, like speakers, need to shrink as well. In JASA Express Letters, published by the Acoustical Society of America through AIP Publishing, researchers from Northwestern Polytechnical University in China and the University of Quebec developed three designs for compact speaker systems that control the…click here to read more.

From the Journal: JASA Express Letters
Link to article: On the design of differential loudspeaker arrays with broadside radiation patterns
DOI: 10.1121/10.0005760

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