Variation in /s/ and the perceived gender typicality of children's speech

Previous research has found an association between the acoustic characteristics of /s/ and judgments of the sex typicality of adult men’s voices. The current study examined whether a similar association could be found when children’s voices are used as stimuli. Two sets of productions were used, with either naturally produced /s/ tokens or tokens of /s/ produced by a trained phonetician. Listeners rated children to sound more girl-like if they produced /s/ with an especially high peak frequency, or with a diffuse spectrum suggesting a frontal misarticulation.