Research seminar: Riccarda Funk, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena
Seminar
Date:Thursday 11 September 2025
Time:15.00 – 17.00
Location:C307, Södra huset
Title: The acoustic and perceptual correlates of gender in children’s voices – Insights from the German LoKiS corpus.
Photo: Canva.com
Abstract
How do listeners perceive gender in children’s voices, even when anatomical and physiological differences in the vocal tract of boys and girls in are minimal? Why are some children’s voices identified as clearly ”masculine” or ”feminine,” while others remain ambiguous?
The project presented here explores these questions through an ongoing longitudinal study of German-speaking children (LoKiS corpus – Longitudinal Study of Kid’s Speech) from first to fifth grade (children aged six to eleven years old).
The LoKiS corpus includes acoustic recordings of the same children across multiple years, accompanied by perceptual data from listening experiments. In addition, we investigate how gender conformity interacts with vocal expression and perception, revealing nuance relationships between gender and voice.
This talk presents key findings of the project and discusses their implications for clinical practice, especially in the context of gender dysphoria in children. The presentation will also outline ongoing plansmfor the international collaboration with the Department of Linguistics at Stockholm University, and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II at Naples. This cooperation will enable cross-linguistic comparisons and a broader exploration of cultural factors in children’s voices and gender perception.
