Vowel sounds reveal male sexual orientation, study shows

(CBS) Is gaydar for real? New research suggests it's possible to tell whether a man is straight or gay simply by listening to the way he pronounces individual syllables.

To reach this conclusion, researchers at Ohio State University had a group of men (some heterosexual and some homosexual) record a series of one-syllable words beginning and ending with a consonant - words like like "mass," "sell," and "food." Another group listened to either the initial consonant, the sounds of the first two letters, or the entire word, and then were asked to make a decision about the speaker's sexual orientation.

The listeners' gaydar wasn't particularly accurate when they heard only the first consonant of a word, according to a written statement released in conjunction with the study. But when they listened to the sound of the first two letters, they were right a remarkable 77 percent of the time. When they listened to the entire word, they were even more accurate.

The finding confirms previous research showing that listeners need only hear a single monosyllabic word to determine a speaker's sexual orientation, according to an abstract of the study.

What explains this ability? Study author Eric C. Tracy, a cognitive psychologist at the university, said it wasn't clear, HealthDay reported. But, he said, "This is a phenomenon that occurs every day," adding that "We believe that listeners are using the acoustic information contained in vowels to make this sexual orientation decision."

The study was scheduled to be presented in Seattle on May 23 at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

The American Psychological Association has more on sexual orientation and homosexuality.