4 ms·
Have you heard a woman's voice in this "masked" state? It still sounds extremely feminine because of the manner of speaking. It's very odd. You can even hear it
by mrrrgn 10y ago
Have you heard a woman's voice in this "masked" state? It still sounds extremely feminine because of the manner of speaking. It's very odd. You can even hear it in this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFqRIvd9d5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFqRIvd9d5s
That alone gives the observation questionable merit.
- paperpunk 10y agoI was going to ask this. It's quite difficult to make male/female voices sound like either with just audio filters/modulation, so I immediately wondered how convincing the effect could really be. I think that the clip you linked to sounds more like a stereotypical 'camp' gay man accent if male at all, which is obviously testing for a different kind of unconscious bias altogether.
- GilbertErik 10y agoExactly. Changing pitch or modulating doesn't change things like pacing and diction and word choice. It'd be like saying 'Men in pink jeans do worse in bars than women in camo dresses'.
- Avery3R 10y agoBesides the speaking patterns you mentioned, women's voices and men's voices resonate in different areas of the vocal tract which you can also hear. Women's voices tend to resonate near the nose and mouth while men's tend to resonate in the chest.
- CM30 10y agoThis makes me wonder why they tried to make the voices sound gender neutral/other gendered rather than say, somewhat non human like. Would the supposed biases still be there if the voices were masked to sound like say, Darth Vader? Or maybe a Dalek from Doctor Who? Would there still be the same issues with speech patterns and what not if it sounded like the interviewee was speaking in robo speak?
- mrrrgn 10y agoI think the easiest solution would be to just conduct the interview via text only. You could even apply filters to transform some common grammatical structures or word choices with gender cues into a more neutral form.
- lake99 10y ago> which is obviously testing for a different kind of unconscious bias altogether. No, the control group for that would be men who have, as you put it, "stereotypical 'camp' gay man accent", i.e. similarly qualified men who happen to naturally sound like this.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- torrent-of-ions 10y agoIt sounds like a gay man.
- cloudjacker 10y agoits a coding job, a lot of guys sound a lot like that