Scientific journal paper Q1
Voice changes meaning: the role of gay- versus straight-sounding voices in sentence interpretation
Fábio Fasoli (Fasoli, F.); Anne Maass (Maass, A.); Rachel Karniol (Karniol, R.); Raquel António (António, R.); Simone Sulpizio (Sulpizio, S.);
Journal Title
Journal of Language and Social Psychology
Year (definitive publication)
2020
Language
English
Country
United States of America
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Abstract
Utterances reveal not only semantic information but also information about the speaker’s social category membership, including sexual orientation. In four studies (N = 345), we investigated how the meaning of what is being said changes as a function of the speaker’s voice. In Studies 1a/1b, gay- and straight-sounding voices uttered the same sentences. Listeners indicated the likelihood that the speaker was referring to one among two target objects varying along gender-stereotypical characteristics. Listeners envisaged a more “feminine” object when the sentence was uttered by a gay-sounding speaker, and a more “masculine” object when the speaker sounded heterosexual. In Studies 2a/2b, listeners were asked to disambiguate sentences that involved a stereotypical behavior and were open to different interpretations. Listeners disambiguated the sentences by interpreting the action in relation to sexual-orientation information conveyed by voice. Results show that the speaker’s voice changes the subjective meaning of sentences, aligning it to gender-stereotypical expectations.
Acknowledgements
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Keywords
Message interpretation,Voice,Sexual orientation,Interpersonal communication
  • Psychology - Social Sciences
  • Educational Sciences - Social Sciences
  • Sociology - Social Sciences
  • Media and Communications - Social Sciences
  • Languages and Literature - Humanities
  • Anthropology - Social Sciences
Funding Records
Funding Reference Funding Entity
UID/PSI/03125/2013 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

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