Study Finds Vocal Fry More Common in Men Than Women

Researchers at McGill University measured acoustic markers of vocal fry in recordings from 49 Canadian speakers. The markers appeared more frequently in male voices, and creakiness rose with speaker age. Jeanne Brown led the acoustic portion of the study. She said the results contradict the common view that vocal fry is mainly a feature of young women’s speech.

In a second experiment, 40 participants rated short voice samples after completing a training module on vocal fry. The samples began with Brown’s manipulated voice and were paired with images of men or women. Listeners correctly identified creaky voices but showed no tendency to assign higher creakiness ratings to female speakers.

Brown presented the findings on 14 May at the Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Philadelphia. She stated that neither the acoustic data nor the perception data supported the popular narrative linking vocal fry primarily to women. Lisa Davidson of New York University noted that listeners can correctly detect creak when prompted, yet social and cultural factors often shape everyday judgments of the trait.