Analysis of Acoustic Characteristics and Gender Differences in Whispered Vowels

This study investigated acoustic differences between whispered and phonated vowels using a dataset of five Japanese vowels produced by 60 speakers (30 male, 30 female). Analysis revealed consistently higher first (F1) and second (F2) formant frequencies in whispered vowels, exhibiting a linear relationship with their phonated counterparts. Female speakers showed higher formant frequencies than males. These findings enhance our understanding of whispered vowel acoustics, perception mechanisms, and have implications for whisper-related speech technology.