You may find vocal fry irritating, but don’t automatically attribute it to women
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Vocal fry, the creaky sound produced when speaking in the lowest vocal register, has become familiar to many through podcasts and TikTok videos. Although often seen as annoying and typically linked to young women, recent research challenges this stereotype due to a lack of solid evidence.
This sound happens when vocal cords are relaxed, leading to a creaky voice at the end of phrases. In popular culture, it’s often perceived negatively, particularly in young women’s speech. However, Jeanne Brown and her team at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, suggest this stereotype should be re-examined.
The researchers analyzed speech from 49 Canadians, using online sources to measure specific acoustic markers of vocal fry, like irregularities and breathiness. Their findings show these traits are more common in men and increase with age, indicating that neither youth nor gender dictates the prevalence of vocal fry.
Brown notes that while previous studies align with these findings, they don’t clarify why women are often associated with vocal fry. She speculates it might be due to how people process acoustic signals, leading to a perception of more creakiness in women’s voices.
To explore this, Brown’s team conducted an experiment with 40 participants who listened to voice notes paired with images of men or women, rating them for creakiness. Participants underwent training to standardize their perception of creakiness. Although they accurately identified creaky voices, they did not associate them more frequently with either gender. Brown presented these findings at the Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 14 May.
“Both the perception and acoustic studies contradict the common belief that women exhibit more vocal fry,” Brown states.
Lisa Davidson from New York University observes that while people can identify creakiness when prompted, they tend to notice it selectively, influenced by social and cultural biases. Her research indicates that listener demographics, such as age, affect perceptions, with older individuals finding creaky voices less pleasant. “Cultural factors heavily influence these perceptions,” Davidson says, noting the absence of similar critiques about men’s voices.
Brown suggests that negative views on vocal fry may stem from social judgments about what the speaker represents, rather than the sound itself. “Interpretations of the speaker’s identity and social group may influence perceptions, alongside the voice’s sound,” she explains.
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