Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 May 28;9(5):e97506.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097506. eCollection 2014.

Vocal fry may undermine the success of young women in the labor market

Rindy C Anderson  1 , Casey A Klofstad  2 , William J Mayew  3 , Mohan Venkatachalam  3
Affiliations

Vocal fry may undermine the success of young women in the labor market

Rindy C Anderson et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Vocal fry is speech that is low pitched and creaky sounding, and is increasingly common among young American females. Some argue that vocal fry enhances speaker labor market perceptions while others argue that vocal fry is perceived negatively and can damage job prospects. In a large national sample of American adults we find that vocal fry is interpreted negatively. Relative to a normal speaking voice, young adult female voices exhibiting vocal fry are perceived as less competent, less educated, less trustworthy, less attractive, and less hirable. The negative perceptions of vocal fry are stronger for female voices relative to male voices. These results suggest that young American females should avoid using vocal fry speech in order to maximize labor market opportunities.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Screenshot of vocal fry perception online assay.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Waveform and spectrogram of the same woman saying the word “opportunity” in normal voice (Panel A) and vocal fry (Panel B).
The dashed circles indicate the vibrations in the vocal fry voice at the end of the utterance.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Average preference ratios for vocal fry over normal voice (+/− 95% confidence interval) by sex of speaker.
Preference ratios reflect the proportion choices made in favor of vocal fry relative to a normal speaking voice. A preference ratio of 1 (0) reflects a strict preference for vocal fry (normal voice), while 0.50 indicates no discernible preference for either vocal fry or normal voice voices.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Childers DG, Lee CK (1991) Vocal quality factors: analysis, synthesis, and perception. J Acoust Soc Am 90: 2394–2410 10.1121/1.402044 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Redi L, Shattuck-Hufnagelf S (2001) Variation in the realization of glottalization in normal speakers. J Phonetics 29: 407–429 10.006/jpho.2001.0145 - DOI
    1. Hollien H, Moore P, Wendahl RW, Michel JF (1966) On the nature of vocal fry. J Speech Hear Res 9: 245–247. - PubMed
    1. Hollien H, Wendahl RW (1968) Perceptual study of vocal fry. J Acoust Soc Am 3: 506–509. - PubMed
    1. Wolk L, Abdelli-Beruh NB, Slavin D (2012) Habitual use of vocal fry in young adult female speakers. J Voice 26: e111–e116 10.1016/j.jvoice.2011.04.007 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types