Identification of Childrenʹs Gender and Age by Listeners

Objectives Voice carries abundant information about the speaker. This acoustic information changes throughout life. Although the ability of identifying audible cues on a speakerʹs gender and age is considered an intuitive task, little is known about the ability to identify and decipher this perceptual information. Most studies in the field have examined the ability to identify adultsʹ gender and age, thus the purpose of the present study was to evaluate listenersʹ ability to identify gender and age of children and adolescents. Methods A total of 120 children in six age groups, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 years, were recorded while producing isolated vowels and fixed sentences. The recordings were evaluated by a group of 38 untrained naive listeners, who were asked to identify the speakersʹ gender and age. Results Listeners were able to identify childrenʹs gender at an overall rate of 81.81%. This task was performed more successfully based on recordings of sentences (85.39%) than on isolated vowels (78.22%). Listeners were able to identify the childrenʹs age group at an overall rate of 37.16%. This task was also performed more successfully based on recordings of sentences (39.58%) than on isolated vowels (34.71%). Furthermore, when an error of آ±1 age group was allowed, correct responses for age identification exceeded 80%. Conclusions Listeners have the ability to identify childrenʹs gender and age, based on short audio recordings, even before puberty. The success rates in these perceptual tasks are dependent on the childʹs age and gender.