The influence of nasality of voice on sex-stereotyped perceptions

Men's and women's Voices differ acoustically, and sex-stereotyped attributi ons are formed based on gender of voice. Recently it has been reported that men's Voices are less nasal than women's voices, and that nasality of voic e is inversely related to perceptions of persuasiveness. The present study was designed to determine whether nasality of Voice affected sex-stereotype d perceptions. Audio tapes were created which contained the voices of 3 men and 3 women each speaking the same sentence at counterbalanced and compara ble low, medium, and high levers of nasality as measured by nasalance score s. The voices were rated on 16 randomly presented adjectives by 30 male and 30 female listeners. The adjectives represented positive and negative fema le and male stereotypes. Ratings did not differ based on gender of listener . Nasality of voice contributed solely and interactively to sex-stereotyped perceptions.