Sex-specific fundamental and formant frequency patterns in a cross-sectional study

An extensive developmental acoustic study of the speech patterns of childre n and adults was reported by Lee and colleagues [Lee et al., J. Acoust. Sec . Am. 105, 1455-1468 (1999)]. This paper presents a reexamination of select ed fundamental frequency and formant frequency data presented in their repo rt for ten monophthongs by investigating sex-specific and developmental pat terns using two different approaches. The first of these includes the inves tigation of age- and sex-specific formant frequency patterns in the monopht hongs. The second, the investigation of fundamental frequency and formant f requency data using the critical band rate (bark) scale and a number of aco ustic-phonetic dimensions of the monophthongs from an age- and sex-specific perspective. These acoustic-phonetic dimensions include: vowel spaces and distances from speaker centroids; frequency differences between the formant frequencies of males and females; vowel openness/ closeness and frontness/ backness; the degree of vocal effort; and formant frequency ranges. Both ap proaches reveal both age- and sex-specific development patterns which also appear to be dependent on whether vowels are peripheral or nonperipheral. T he developmental emergence of these sex-specific differences are discussed with reference to anatomical, physiological, sociophonetic, and culturally determined factors. Some directions for further investigation into the age- linked sex differences in speech across the lifespan are also proposed. (C) 2001 Acoustical Society of America.