Blog, Speaker Sense
Gender Hearing Differences
Jun
In a study of 350 newborn baby girls and boys, Professor Jane Cassidy at Louisiana State University found that girls hearing is more sensitive than boys; especially in the 1000- to 4000-Hz range which is the range most important for speech discrimination.
Subsequent studies confirmed that girls hear better at higher frequencies and have determined that there is an anatomical basis for this finding. Hiroaki Sato’s study was the first to determine differences in the anatomy of the inner ear between the sexes. Girls are born with a cochlea which is shorter and stiffer than boys. The shorter, stiffer cochlea provides a more sensitive frequency response. Thierry Morlet demonstrated that the hair cells themselves are stiffer (and therefore more sensitive) in girls compared to the hair cells in boys.
It is theorized that woman develop better language skills because they hear better at a younger age. It is also supposed that girls are more affected by authority because what might be normal level speaking is perceived as yelling.
Men don’t hear as well as women do, but most men are blissfully unaware of this fact. Could this be the reason husbands hear blah blah blah when their wives talk, or why they only respond in cave man grunts”
