Footsteps and Sex Identification

Ecological acoustics: Li, Logan and Pastore (1991)

Used standardized footwear:

Inferential Logic:
  1. Hear a long time delay between heel-contact and sole-slap.

  2. Therefore, infer that the foot is relatively large.

  3. Large foot size is correlated with large body size.

  4. Since men tend to be larger than women, infer that it is a man.

Note that it is not common for listeners to be aware of the foot size of a walker. Why?

  • Identifying someone's sex is evolutionarily more important than identifying their foot size.