alphauser51 opened this issue on Apr 02, 2006 ยท 9 posts
ockham posted Sun, 02 April 2006 at 4:45 PM
There's more to it than pitch. In fact, pitch isn't what our ears use to determine the difference. For a convincing non-technical demonstration, listen to male and female coughs, sneezes, and whispers. None of those involve pitch, but you can distinguish gender with 90% accuracy on those sounds. Technically, what makes the difference is the overall shape of the throat and mouth, which emphasizes and damps different groups of frequencies [formants] in the original vocal vibration.