Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-bz9xj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-08-15T16:12:36.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Speaker sex and perceived apportionment of talk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Anne Cutler  and
Donia R. Scott
Anne Cutler*
Affiliation:
MRC Applied Psychology Unit
Donia R. Scott
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
*
Anne Cutler, MRC Applied Psychology Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 2EF, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is a widely held belief that women talk more than men; but experimental evidence has suggested that this belief is mistaken. The present study investigated whether listener bias contributes to this mistake. Dialogues were recorded in mixed-sex and single-sex versions, and male and female listeners judged the proportions of talk contributed to the dialogues by each participant. Female contributions to mixed-sex dialogues were rated as greater than male contributions by both male and female listeners. Female contributions were more likely to be overestimated when they were speaking a dialogue part perceived as probably female than when they were speaking a dialogue part perceived as probably male. It is suggested that the misestimates are due to a complex of factors that may involve both perceptual effects such as misjudgment of rates of speech and sociological effects such as attitudes to social roles and perception of power relations.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 1990 , pp. 253 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Allan, L. G. (1979). The perception of time. Perception & Psychophysics, 26, 340–354.Google Scholar
Argyle, M., Lalljee, M., & Cook, M. (1968). The effects of visibility on interaction in a dyad. Human Relations, 21, 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, R. N., & Feldstein, S. (1982). Acoustical correlates of the perception of speech rate: An experimental investigation. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 11, 539–557.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brotherton, P. L., & Penman, R. A. (1977). A comparison of some characteristics of male and female speech. Journal of Social Psychology, 103, 161–162.Google Scholar
Duncan, S., & Fiske, D. W. (1977). Face-to-face interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Eakins, B., & Eakins, G. (1976). Verbal turn-taking and exchanges in faculty dialogue. In Dubois, B. L. & Crouch, I. (Eds.), The sociology of the languages of American women. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University.Google Scholar
Feldstein, S., & Bond, R. N. (1981). Perception of speech rate as a function of vocal intensity and frequency. Language & Speech, 24, 387–394.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gall, M. D., Hobby, A. K. & Craik, K. H. (1969). Non-linguistic factors in oral language productivity. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 29, 871–874.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosjean, F., & Lane, H. (1974). Effects of two temporal variables on the listener's perception of reading rate. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 893–896.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grosjean, F., & Lane, H. (1976). How the listener integrates the components of speaking rate. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 2, 538–543.Google ScholarPubMed
Grosjean, F., & Lane, H. (1981). Temporal variables in the perception and production of spoken and sign languages. In Eimas, P. & Miller, J. L. (Eds.), Perspectives on the study of speech. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hilpert, F., Kramer, C., & Clark, R. A. (1975). Participants' perceptions of self and partner in mixed sex dyads. Central States Speech Journal, 26, 52–56.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. (1975). Women's speech: Separate but unequal? In Thorne, B. & Henley, N. (Eds.), Language and sex: Difference and dominance. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. (1977). Perceptions of female and male speech. Language and Speech, 20, 151–161.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markel, N. N., Long, J. F., & Saine, T. J. (1976). Sex effects in conversational interaction: Another look at male dominance. Human Communication Research, 2, 356–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preisler, B. (1986). Linguistic sex roles in conversation. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, J. M., & Gardner, R. C. (1967). Dimensions of oral and written language fluency. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6, 936–945.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rietveld, A. C. M., & Gussenhoven, C. (1987). Perceived speech rate and intonation. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 273–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spender, D. (1979, 02). Language and sex differences. Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprach theorie. 38–59.Google Scholar
Spender, D. (1980). Man-made language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Swacker, M. (1975). The sex of the speaker as a sociolinguistic variable. In Thorne, B. & Henley, N. (Eds.), Language and sex: Difference and dominance. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar