Acoustic correlates of talker sex and individual talker identity are present in a short vowel segment produced in running speech

Although listeners routinely perceive both the sex and individual identity of talkers from their speech, explanations of these abilities are incomplet e. Here, variation in vocal production-related anatomy was assumed to affec t vowel acoustics thought to be critical for indexical cueing. Integrating this approach with source-filter theory, patterns of acoustic parameters th at should represent sex and identity were identified. Due to sexual dimorph ism, the combination of fundamental frequency (F-0, reflecting larynx size) and vocal tract length cues (VTL, reflecting body size) was predicted to p rovide the strongest acoustic correlates of talker sex. Acoustic measures a ssociated with presumed variations in supralaryngeal vocal tract-related an atomy occurring within sex were expected to be prominent in individual talk er identity. These predictions were supported by results of analyses of 250 0 tokens of the /epsilon/ phoneme, extracted from the naturally produced sp eech of 125 subjects. Classification by talker sex was virtually perfect wh en F-0 and VTL were used together, whereas talker classification depended p rimarily on the various acoustic parameters associated with vocal-tract fil tering. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(99)02608-9].