Differences in Tone of Voice between the Races

[Northern Paladin]

What accounts for the differences in the Tone of Voice between the various Races?

I have and I am sure many of you have noticed the distinct difference in Voice between Europeans and Africans. Though and a subtler though noticable difference between Asians and Europeans.

What is the signifcance of this difference? Can voice be used like other visual clues to determine the genetic distance between two individuals?

Are people conciously or unconciously aware of this when they are talking?
How does this factor in Mate selection?

[Shapur]

What accounts for the differences in the Tone of Voice between the various Races?

I have and I am sure many of you have noticed the distinct difference in Voice between Europeans and Africans. Though and a subtler though noticable difference between Asians and Europeans.

What is the signifcance of this difference? Can voice be used like other visual clues to determine the genetic distance between two individuals?

Are people conciously or unconciously aware of this when they are talking?
How does this factor in Mate selection?

Physical the voice is all the same. It is individual difference.
Sure that a Nigger who learnt English speak other then a guy who have it as mother tongue!

[Scoob]

Blacks tend to have lots of deep undertones in their voices. When Blacks imitate whites, they always make the voice extra-nasal.

There are likely racial differences between nasal cavity, mouth, and soft parts in the mouth/nose/throat area that can account for racial differences in voice - aside from cultural differences.

[Jethro Tull]

Physical the voice is all the same. It is individual difference.
Sure that a Nigger who learnt English speak other then a guy who have it as mother tongue!

False.
The voice changes from race to race due the cranial shape.
Look how terrible is a japanese male singing.

[Shapur]

I thought only the voice muscle make the voice?
I heard many people who were Negroids who spoke perfect English/German.
And if you would hear them on the phone you would think they are White.
How I read is that every person can make 70 voices.
And every person can do these 70 voices!
The only difference of individuality is the length, high of these voices.

[Northern Paladin]

I thought only the voice muscle make the voice?
I heard many people who were Negroids who spoke perfect English/German.
And if you would hear them on the phone you would think they are White.
How I read is that every person can make 70 voices.
And every person can do these 70 voices!
The only difference of individuality is the length, high of these voices.

By perfect I bet what you mean is Pronouciation. 90% of the time I can tell the difference between a Negroe's voice and a White persons voice, that is I can identify whether a not a person is Black or White by simply hearing their Voice.

I think it's a combination of factors and quite complex as complex as phenotypical appearance.

Size thickness of Voical Cords, Poistion of various tubes in the neck(lack of scientific terms),and Nose/Cranial shape all influence what a Person sounds like.

[Euclides]

Percept Mot Skills. 2000 Dec;91(3 Pt 1):951-8.


Effects of race and sex on acoustic features of voice analysis.

Xue SA, Fucci D.

School of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Ohio University, Athens 45701, USA. XUE@OHIO.EDU

This study sought to provide preliminary normative data for the vocal productions of 44 Euro-American and 40 African-American elderly speakers and to test the hypotheses that (1) Euro-American elderly speakers do not have significantly different acoustic parameters of voice from African-American elderly speakers, and (2) elderly male speakers (both Euro-American and African-American) do not have significantly different acoustic parameters of voice from elderly female speakers (both Euro-American and African-American). Voice samples from groups of 44 Euro-American (21 men and 23 women) and 40 African-American (20 men and 20 women) elderly speakers (ages 70 to 80 years) from northeastern Arkansas were compared on measures of 15 selected multidimensional voice profile (KAY Elemetrics) acoustic parameters. Analysis show that Euro-American elderly speakers did not differ significantly from African-American elderly speakers on the measurements of all the selected acoustic parameters of voice, and elderly male speakers as a group differed from elderly female speakers on the measurements of absolute jitter, soft phonation index, and standard deviation of the fundamental frequency as well as fundamental frequency in Hz. The findings suggest it may not be necessary to establish separate acoustic norms of voice for Euro-American and African-American elderly speakers. However, some acoustic parameters of voice are highly sex-dependent, and different norms may be needed for male and female speakers regardless of their racial origins.


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J Voice. 1997 Dec;11(4):410-6.


Aerodynamic and acoustic characteristics of the adult African American voice.

Sapienza CM.

Department of Communication Processes and Disorders, University of Florida, USA.

Laryngeal aerodynamic and acoustic characteristics of African American voice production were examined from vowel samples produced by ten adult female and ten adult male speakers. The data were compared with that for a control group consisting of ten adult female and ten adult male White speakers, matched for age, height, and weight. All measures were analyzed using Cspeech 4.0. Aerodynamic measurements, extracted from a glottal airflow waveform, included maximum flow declination rate, alternating glottal airflow, minimum glottal airflow, and airflow open quotient. Acoustic measures included fundamental frequency and sound pressure level. No significant mean differences between the African American and White speakers were found, except for maximum-flow declination rate. The White speakers produced significantly higher declination rates than the African American speakers. The factor of sex for the African American speakers was statistically significant for the measures of maximum-flow declination rate, alternating glottal airflow, open quotient, and fundamental frequency, consistent with the functioning of the White speakers. The results suggest that during vowel production, where the vocal tract is in a fairly static position, acoustic and aerodynamic characteristics for African American and White Speakers are comparable.


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J Commun Disord. 1997 Mar-Apr;30(2):101-14; quiz 115-6.

Speaking fundamental frequency characteristics of 8- through 10-year-old white- and African-American boys.

Morris R.

Department of Communication Disorders, Florida State University, Tallahassee 32306-2007, USA. morris@mailer.fsu.edu

The purpose of this study was to determine the typical speaking fundamental frequencies (SFF) and the standard deviations of the SFF (pitch sigmas) of African-American boys in comparison to white-American boys. A group of 90 boys, 45 from each racial group, aged 8 through 10 years, were recorded as they read a passage and as they described a picture. Analysis of these recordings indicated that no significant differences occurred among any of the groups for modal SFF. The across-race analysis of pitch sigma revealed that the 9- and 10-year-old African-American boys exhibited significantly greater variability in comparison to the age-matched white boys. When the pitch sigma data were analyzed within race, the 10-year-old African-American boys exhibited significantly greater variability than the younger African-American boys, while no differences were found among the white boys



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Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1996 Dec;115(6):527-37.

Laryngeal biomechanics of the singing voice.

Koufman JA, Radomski TA, Joharji GM, Russell GB, Pillsbury DC.

Center For Voice Disorders of Wake Forest University, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Wake Forest University Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1034, USA.

By transnasal fiberoptic laryngoscopy, patients with functional voice often demonstrate abnormal laryngeal biomechanics, commonly supraglottic contraction. Appropriately, such conditions are sometimes termed muscle tension dysphonias. Singers working at the limits of their voice may also transiently demonstrate comparable tension patterns. However, the biomechanics of normal singing, particularly for different singing styles, have not been previously well characterized. We used transnasal fiberoptic laryngoscopy to study 100 healthy singers to assess patterns of laryngeal tension during normal singing and to determine whether factors such as sex, occupation, and style of singing influence laryngeal muscle tension. Thirty-nine male and 61 female singers were studied; 48 were professional singers, and 52 were amateurs. Examinations of study subjects performing standardized and nonstandardized singing tasks were recorded on a laser disk and subsequently analyzed in a frame-by-frame fashion by a blinded otolaryngologist. Each vocal task was graded for muscle tension by previously established criteria, and objective muscle tension scores were computed. The muscle tension score was expressed as a percentage of frames for each task with one of the laryngeal muscle tension patterns shown. The lowest muscle tension scores were seen in female professional singers, and the highest muscle tension scores were seen in amateur female singers. Male singers (professional and amateur) had intermediate muscle tension scores. Classical singers had lower muscle tension scores than nonclassical singers, with the lowest muscle tension scores being seen in those singing choral music (41%), art song (47%), and opera (57%), and the highest being seen in those singing jazz/pop (65%), musical theater (74%), bluegrass/country and western (86%), and rock/gospel (94%). Analyzed also were the influences of vocal nodules, prior vocal training, number of performance and practice hours per week, warm-up before singing, race, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

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Cleft Palate Craniofac J. 1996 Mar;33(2):143-9.


Nasalance and nasal area values: cross-racial study.

Mayo R, Floyd LA, Warren DW, Dalston RM, Mayo CM.

Speech and Language Services, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 27599-7450, USA.

Nasometry and nasal cross-sectional area data were obtained from 80 normal male and female speakers (40 African-Americans and 40 white Americans) all of whom were over the age of 18 and spoke the Mid-Atlantic dialect of American English. The nasalance scores for readings of the Zoo Passage did not differ significantly between the groups. However, nasalance scores for readings of the Nasal Sentences were found to be significantly higher among the white speakers. The pressure-flow method was used to obtain nasal cross-sectional area values. There were no racial differences in nasal cross-sectional area. The Nasal Sentences scores were not highly correlated with nasal cross-sectional area. The clinical significance of these findings is discussed.


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J Speech Hear Res. 1994 Aug;37(4):738-45.


Speaker race identification from acoustic cues in the vocal signal.

Walton JH, Orlikoff RF.

Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Mississippi, University 38677.

One-second acoustic samples were extracted from the mid-portion of sustained /a/ vowels produced by 50 black and 50 white adult males. Each vowel sample from a black subject was randomly paired with a sample from a white subject. From the tape-recorded samples alone, both expert and naive listeners could determine the race of the speaker with 60% accuracy. The accuracy of race identification was independent of the listener's own race, sex, or listening experience. An acoustic analysis of the samples revealed that, although within ranges reported by previous studies of normal voices, the black speakers had greater frequency perturbation, significantly greater amplitude perturbation, and a significantly lower harmonics-to-noise ratio than did the white speakers. The listeners were most successful in distinguishing voice pairs when the differences in vocal perturbation and additive noise were greatest and were least successful when such differences were minimal or absent. Because there were no significant differences in the mean fundamental frequency or formant structure of the voice samples, it is likely that the listeners relied on differences in spectral noise to discriminate the black and white speakers.


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Percept Mot Skills. 1982 Jun;54(3 Pt 2):1235-40.


Effect of vocal disguise on judgments of speakers' sex and race.

Lass NJ, Trapp DS, Baldwin MK, Scherbick KA, Wright DL.

To determine the effect of speakers' attempts to disguise their voices on listeners' accuracy in judgments of speakers' sex and race, 26 speakers, 13 women and 13 men, recorded six sentences under three conditions: (a) in a normal manner, (b) in a manner in which they attempted to sound like a member of the opposite sex, and (c) in a manner in which they attempted to sound like a member of the black race. Three master tapes were constructed, one for each of the three conditions. A total of 40 judges, 20 in an experiment on sex identification and 20 in one on race identification, participated in two sessions, one for each of two tapes (control and disguise) in each experiment. In each session they were asked to judge the sex or race of the speaker of each sentence and, using a seven-point confidence rating scale, to indicate the over-all confidence in their judgments at the end of each session. Analysis indicated that, although listeners' accuracy for sex and race identification was greater under the control than disguised conditions for the majority of speakers, the differences between the two conditions were relatively small. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.


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