LoKiS corpus

Longitudinal Study of Kid's Speech – LoKiS corpus
Information

The LoKiS corpus includes acoustic recordings from a longitudinal study involving approximately 60 German-speaking children. So far, recordings have been made at four different points in time (from first to fourth grade, six to ten years old).

The corpus is being extended as part of the DFG project "The Acoustic and Perceptual Correlates of Gender in Children's Voices" (SI 743/9-1/2, project duration 2020–2027).

Acoustic recordings

Setup of a recording environment

Image: Riccarda Funk
  • Autumn 2020: 62 children (29 f, 33 m), 6-7 years old
  • Autumn 2021: 60 children (28 f, 32 m), 7-8 years old
  • Autumn 2022: 56 children (26 f, 30 m), 8-9 years old
  • Autumn 2023: 52 children (24 f, 28 m), 9-10 years old

The metadata includes the children's biological sex, age, time of recording, a gender conformity index, and a gender perception index.

All recordings have already been segmented and annotated, and individual words and segments are searchable in the database.

Speech material

Two-syllabic target words / Picture naming task

Two-syllabic target words / Picture naming task

Graphic: Tu Anh Nguyen Thi

A total of 25 stimuli were recorded per child:

  • Naming of eleven pictures with two-syllabic target words: Hase (hare), Blume (flower), Biene (bee), Tasche (bag), Nase (nose), Kuchen (cake), Igel (hedgehog), Tasse (cup), Vase (vase), Tiger (tiger), Lupe (magnifying glass)
  • Counting from one to ten
  • Repeating ten different sentences
  • Describing three simple  pictures: farm, Christmas room, playground

Publications

  • Journal articles
    • Funk, R., M. Weirich, & A. P. Simpson. 2024 (in press). The effect of fundamental frequency on gender perception in prepubertal children – Insights from the LoKiS database. Journal of Voice. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2024.04.010 External link
    • Funk, R. & A. P. Simpson. 2023. The acoustic and perceptual correlates of gender in children’s voices. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. DOI: 10.1044/2023_jslhr-22-00682External link
  • Monographs

    Funk, R. 2025. Die Entwicklung von Geschlecht in der präpubertären Stimme. Eine Langzeitstudie. Dissertation, Jena. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.64443External link

  • Conference papers
    • Funk, R., M. Weirich, & A. P. Simpson. 2023. Speech tempo influences gender perception in prepubertal children. In Proc. Phonetik und Phonologie 19. Bern, 15-16. DOI: 10.48350/186731External link
    • Funk, R., M. Weirich, & A. P. Simpson. 2023. Phonetic correlates of gender in prepubertal voices. In R. Skarnitzl & J. Volìn (eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Prague: Guarant International, 22-26. ISBN: ISBN: 978-80-908 114-2-3External link
    • Funk, R., M. Weirich, & A. P. Simpson. 2023. The influence of fundamental frequency on gender perception in children’s voices – results from a longitudinal study. In 5th Phonetics and Phonology in Europe. Nijmegen, 93-94.
    • Funk, R. & A. P. Simpson. 2022. Die Entwicklung von Geschlecht in der präpubertären Stimme: Eine Langzeitstudie. In Proc. Phonetik und Phonologie 18. Bielefeld. DOI: 10.11576/pundp2022-1043 External link
  • Invited talks
    • 01/2025: Akustik und Perzeption von Geschlecht in Kinderstimmen: Einblicke in das LoKiS-Korpus (Philipps University Marburg)
    • 06/2024: The perception of gender in the voices of prepubertal German-speaking children. (Voice Research Unit Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
    • 04/2024: The influence of voice quality on gender perception in prepubertal children. (Humboldt University Berlin)

Contact – Access to the Corpus

If you would like to access the data from the LoKiS corpus, please contact Riccarda Funk de (riccarda.funk@uni-jena.de).