Female speakers’ higher pitch is less masked by reverberation and noise

Evidence

Partially masked test tones, which lie only 3 dB above masked threshold, frequently produce very small pitch strength. For test tones 10 dB above masked threshold, the pitch strength reaches almost half the value obtained with an unmasked pure tone. At levels 20 dB above masked threshold, pitch strength is almost equal to the pitch strength of an unaffected pure tone. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 850 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reverberation degrades neural pitch coding far more for intonated than steady speech; Different-sex background voices boost speech intelligibility by up to 40 percent at low SNRs; Masked tones recover pitch strength as their level rises above masked threshold — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 850

Broader Connections

• Masked tones recover pitch strength as their level rises above masked threshold #expands (0.75) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 850