Auditory Gaydar: Perception of Sexual Orientation Based on Female Voice

We investigated auditory gaydar (i.e., the ability to recognize sexual orientation) in female speakers, addressing three related issues: whether auditory gaydar is (1) accurate, (2) language-dependent (i.e., occurs only in some languages, but not in others), and (3) ingroup-specific (i.e., occurs on...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language and speech 2020-03, Vol.63 (1), p.184-206
Main Authors: Sulpizio, Simone, Fasoli, Fabio, Antonio, Raquel, Eyssel, Friederike, Paladino, Maria Paola, Diehl, Charlotte
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Female
Females
German language
Germany
Heterosexuality - psychology
Humans
Italian language
Italy
Judgment
Language
Listening
Male
Portugal
Portuguese language
Sexual and Gender Minorities - psychology
Sexual Behavior
Sexual orientation
Sexuality
Social perception
Speech Acoustics
Speech Perception
Surveys and Questionnaires
Voice
Young Adult
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Summary:We investigated auditory gaydar (i.e., the ability to recognize sexual orientation) in female speakers, addressing three related issues: whether auditory gaydar is (1) accurate, (2) language-dependent (i.e., occurs only in some languages, but not in others), and (3) ingroup-specific (i.e., occurs only when listeners judge speakers of their own language, but not when they judge foreign language speakers). In three experiments, we asked Italian, Portuguese, and German participants (total N = 466) to listen to voices of Italian, Portuguese, and German women, and to rate their sexual orientation. Our results showed that auditory gaydar was not accurate; listeners were not able to identify speakers’ sexual orientation correctly. The same pattern emerged consistently across all three languages and when listeners rated foreign-language speakers.
ISSN:0023-8309
1756-6053
DOI:10.1177/0023830919828201