Examining the female-talker default in experimental language acquisition research

Experimental research on language acquisition and development regularly employs auditory stimuli as part of the methodology. This project analyses the apparent standard practice of using female speakers to produce these experimental materials and the potential consequences of such a practice. To situate the discussion in the current scientific landscape we present a systematic review of published literature between 2017 and 2022 to establish how prevalent this practice is. The review finds a strong bias in favour of female-spoken stimuli across publications in a curated set of nine journals. We discuss this result in light of gender-based workplace inequality, changing caregiver expectations and the reliability of infants' assumed female voice preference. This project seeks to encourage researchers to consider how diversifying the stimuli used in these types of studies would lead to both a more inclusive and representative research landscape, as well as ensure that our research results are generalizable.