1
|
Weirich M, Simpson AP, Knutti N. Effects of testosterone on speech production and perception: Linking hormone levels in males to vocal cues and female voice attractiveness ratings. Physiol Behav 2024; 283:114615. [PMID: 38880296 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2024.114615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2024] [Revised: 06/10/2024] [Accepted: 06/13/2024] [Indexed: 06/18/2024]
Abstract
This study sets out to investigate the potential effect of males' testosterone level on speech production and speech perception. Regarding speech production, we investigate intra- and inter-individual variation in mean fundamental frequency (fo) and formant frequencies and highlight the potential interacting effect of another hormone, i.e. cortisol. In addition, we investigate the influence of different speech materials on the relationship between testosterone and speech production. Regarding speech perception, we investigate the potential effect of individual differences in males' testosterone level on ratings of attractiveness of female voices. In the production study, data is gathered from 30 healthy adult males ranging from 19 to 27 years (mean age: 22.4, SD: 2.2) who recorded their voices and provided saliva samples at 9 am, 12 noon and 3 pm on a single day. Speech material consists of sustained vowels, counting, read speech and a free description of pictures. Biological measures comprise speakers' height, grip strength, and hormone levels (testosterone and cortisol). In the perception study, participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of female voice stimuli (sentence stimulus, same-speaker pairs) that were manipulated in three steps regarding mean fo and formant frequencies. Regarding speech production, our results show that testosterone affected mean fo (but not formants) both within and between speakers. This relationship was weakened in speakers with high cortisol levels and depended on the speech material. Regarding speech perception, we found female stimuli with higher mean fo and formants to be rated as sounding more attractive than stimuli with lower mean fo and formants. Moreover, listeners with low testosterone showed an increased sensitivity to vocal cues of female attractiveness. While our results of the production study support earlier findings of a relationship between testosterone and mean fo in males (which is mediated by cortisol), they also highlight the relevance of the speech material: The effect of testosterone was strongest in sustained vowels, potentially due to a strengthened effect of hormones on physiologically strongly influenced tasks such as sustained vowels in contrast to more free speech tasks such as a picture description. The perception study is the first to show an effect of males' testosterone level on female attractiveness ratings using voice stimuli.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Melanie Weirich
- Institute for German Linguistics, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany.
| | - Adrian P Simpson
- Institute for German Linguistics, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
| | | |
Collapse
|
2
|
Lavan N, Sutherland CAM. Idiosyncratic and shared contributions shape impressions from voices and faces. Cognition 2024; 251:105881. [PMID: 39029363 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2024] [Revised: 07/06/2024] [Accepted: 07/07/2024] [Indexed: 07/21/2024]
Abstract
Voices elicit rich first impressions of what the person we are hearing might be like. Research stresses that these impressions from voices are shared across different listeners, such that people on average agree which voices sound trustworthy or old and which do not. However, can impressions from voices also be shaped by the 'ear of the beholder'? We investigated whether - and how - listeners' idiosyncratic, personal preferences contribute to first impressions from voices. In two studies (993 participants, 156 voices), we find evidence for substantial idiosyncratic contributions to voice impressions using a variance portioning approach. Overall, idiosyncratic contributions were as important as shared contributions to impressions from voices for inferred person characteristics (e.g., trustworthiness, friendliness). Shared contributions were only more influential for impressions of more directly apparent person characteristics (e.g., gender, age). Both idiosyncratic and shared contributions were reduced when stimuli were limited in their (perceived) variability, suggesting that natural variation in voices is key to understanding this impression formation. When comparing voice impressions to face impressions, we found that idiosyncratic and shared contributions to impressions similarly across modality when stimulus properties are closely matched - although voice impressions were overall less consistent than face impressions. We thus reconceptualise impressions from voices as being formed not only based on shared but also idiosyncratic contributions. We use this new framing to suggest future directions of research, including understanding idiosyncratic mechanisms, development, and malleability of voice impression formation.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Nadine Lavan
- Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom.
| | - Clare A M Sutherland
- School of Psychology, King's College, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom; School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Caton NR, Brown LM, Zhao AAZ, Dixson BJW. Human Male Body Size Predicts Increased Knockout Power, Which Is Accurately Tracked by Conspecific Judgments of Male Dominance. HUMAN NATURE (HAWTHORNE, N.Y.) 2024; 35:114-133. [PMID: 38878141 PMCID: PMC11317448 DOI: 10.1007/s12110-024-09473-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/02/2024] [Indexed: 08/13/2024]
Abstract
Humans have undergone a long evolutionary history of violent agonistic exchanges, which would have placed selective pressures on greater body size and the psychophysical systems that detect them. The present work showed that greater body size in humans predicted increased knockout power during combative contests (Study 1a-1b: total N = 5,866; Study 2: N = 44 openweight fights). In agonistic exchanges reflective of ancestral size asymmetries, heavier combatants were 200% more likely to win against their lighter counterparts because they were 200% more likely to knock them out (Study 2). Human dominance judgments (total N = 500 MTurkers) accurately tracked the frequency with which men (N = 516) knocked out similar-sized adversaries (Study 3). Humans were able to directly perceive a man's knockout power because they were attending to cues of a man's body size. Human dominance judgments-which are important across numerous psychological domains, including attractiveness, leadership, and legal decision-making-accurately predict the likelihood with which a potential mate, ally, or rival can incapacitate their adversaries.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Neil R Caton
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
| | - Lachlan M Brown
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Amy A Z Zhao
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Barnaby J W Dixson
- School of Psychology, The University of the Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Aung T, Hill AK, Hlay JK, Hess C, Hess M, Johnson J, Doll L, Carlson SM, Magdinec C, G-Santoyo I, Walker RS, Bailey D, Arnocky S, Kamble S, Vardy T, Kyritsis T, Atkinson Q, Jones B, Burns J, Koster J, Palomo-Vélez G, Tybur JM, Muñoz-Reyes J, Choy BKC, Li NP, Klar V, Batres C, Bascheck P, Schild C, Penke L, Pazhoohi F, Kemirembe K, Valentova JV, Varella MAC, da Silva CSA, Borras-Guevara M, Hodges-Simeon C, Ernst M, Garr C, Chen BB, Puts D. Effects of Voice Pitch on Social Perceptions Vary With Relational Mobility and Homicide Rate. Psychol Sci 2024; 35:250-262. [PMID: 38289294 DOI: 10.1177/09567976231222288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/16/2024] Open
Abstract
Fundamental frequency ( fo) is the most perceptually salient vocal acoustic parameter, yet little is known about how its perceptual influence varies across societies. We examined how fo affects key social perceptions and how socioecological variables modulate these effects in 2,647 adult listeners sampled from 44 locations across 22 nations. Low male fo increased men's perceptions of formidability and prestige, especially in societies with higher homicide rates and greater relational mobility in which male intrasexual competition may be more intense and rapid identification of high-status competitors may be exigent. High female fo increased women's perceptions of flirtatiousness where relational mobility was lower and threats to mating relationships may be greater. These results indicate that the influence of fo on social perceptions depends on socioecological variables, including those related to competition for status and mates.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Toe Aung
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | | | - Jessica K Hlay
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | - Catherine Hess
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | - Michael Hess
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | - Janie Johnson
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | - Leslie Doll
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | - Sara M Carlson
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | | | - Isaac G-Santoyo
- Faculty of Psychology, National Autonomous University of Mexico
| | | | - Drew Bailey
- School of Education, University of California, Irvine
| | | | | | - Tom Vardy
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland
| | | | | | | | - Jessica Burns
- Department of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati
| | - Jeremy Koster
- Department of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati
| | | | - Joshua M Tybur
- Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
| | - José Muñoz-Reyes
- Center for Advanced Studies, Playa Ancha University of Educational Sciences
| | - Bryan K C Choy
- School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
| | - Norman P Li
- School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
| | - Verena Klar
- Faculty of Biology and Psychology, Georg August University Göttingen
| | | | - Patricia Bascheck
- Faculty of Biology and Psychology, Georg August University Göttingen
| | - Christoph Schild
- Faculty of Biology and Psychology, Georg August University Göttingen
- Department of Psychology, University of Siegen
| | - Lars Penke
- Faculty of Biology and Psychology, Georg August University Göttingen
- Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Farid Pazhoohi
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Moritz Ernst
- Faculty of Biology and Psychology, Georg August University Göttingen
| | - Collin Garr
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| | | | - David Puts
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Liu J, Jiang H. Exploring the Effects of Online Physician Voice Pitch Range and Filled Pauses on Patient Satisfaction in Mobile Health Communication. HEALTH COMMUNICATION 2024:1-14. [PMID: 38314782 DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2024.2313791] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2024]
Abstract
The convenience of mobile devices has driven the widespread use of voice technology in mobile health communication, significantly improving the timeliness of online service. However, the issue of listening to therapeutic content, which requires great cognitive effort and may exceed the patient's information processing capacity (i.e., information overload), is of concern. Based on information processing theory, this study reports how online physicians' voice characteristics (pitch range and filled pauses) affect patient satisfaction. We obtained 10,585 mobile voice consultation records of 1,416 doctors from China's largest mHealth platform and analyzed them using audio mining and empirical methods. Results showed that pitch range (β = 0.0539, p < .01) and filled pauses (β = 0.0365, p < .01) in doctors' voice positively influenced online patient satisfaction. However, the effect of filled pauses becomes weaker for patients with higher health literacy and higher disease risk. This suggests that there is heterogeneity in the way different patients process audio information. This study provides important insights for guiding online physician behaviors, enhancing patient satisfaction, and improving mobile health platform management.
Collapse
|
6
|
Sorokowski P, Groyecka-Bernard A, Frackowiak T, Kobylarek A, Kupczyk P, Sorokowska A, Misiak M, Oleszkiewicz A, Bugaj K, Włodarczyk M, Pisanski K. Comparing accuracy in voice-based assessments of biological speaker traits across speech types. Sci Rep 2023; 13:22989. [PMID: 38151496 PMCID: PMC10752881 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-49596-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Accepted: 12/09/2023] [Indexed: 12/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Nonverbal acoustic parameters of the human voice provide cues to a vocaliser's sex, age, and body size that are relevant in human social and sexual communication, and also increasingly so for computer-based voice recognition and synthesis technologies. While studies have shown some capacity in human listeners to gauge these biological traits from unseen speakers, it remains unknown whether speech complexity improves accuracy. Here, in over 200 vocalisers and 1500 listeners of both sexes, we test whether voice-based assessments of sex, age, height and weight vary from isolated vowels and words, to sequences of vowels and words, to full sentences or paragraphs. We show that while listeners judge sex and especially age more accurately as speech complexity increases, accuracy remains high across speech types, even for a single vowel sound. In contrast, the actual heights and weights of vocalisers explain comparatively less variance in listener's assessments of body size, which do not vary systematically by speech type. Our results thus show that while more complex speech can improve listeners' biological assessments, the gain is ecologically small, as listeners already show an impressive capacity to gauge speaker traits from extremely short bouts of standardised speech, likely owing to within-speaker stability in underlying nonverbal vocal parameters such as voice pitch. We discuss the methodological, technological, and social implications of these results.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Piotr Sorokowski
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
| | | | | | | | - Piotr Kupczyk
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
| | | | - Michał Misiak
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
- Being Human Lab, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
| | - Anna Oleszkiewicz
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
- Interdisciplinary Center Smell & Taste, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Katarzyna Bugaj
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
| | | | - Katarzyna Pisanski
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
- Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, CNRS/Centre National de La Recherche Scientifique, Université Lyon 2, Lyon, France.
- ENES Bioacoustics Research Lab, CRNL, University of Saint-Etienne, CNRS, Saint-Etienne, Inserm, France.
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
von der Linde M, Herbster C, Dobel C, Festag S, Thielsch MT. Creating safe environments: optimal acoustic alarming of laypeople in fire prevention. ERGONOMICS 2023; 66:2193-2211. [PMID: 36927322 DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2023.2191915] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2022] [Accepted: 03/10/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Hazards like fires occur regularly and can cost people's lives. Optimal auditory alarm signals enable laypeople to recognise dangers and to protect themselves. Existing fire alarm sound research focuses on alarm sounds and voice alerts presented singularly. We explored a combination of both and aimed to identify alarm signals that work optimally in everyday life. Thus, we conducted two online experiments: In Study 1 (N = 379), we tested eight alarm sounds regarding their typicality, their familiarity, their arousal, their valence, and their dominance. Siren-like alarm sounds were the most effective. In Study 2 (N = 206), we combined the four most effective alarm sounds with a voice alert. The voice alert reinforced ambiguity reduction, action motivation, and action intention. Hence, we suggest using alarm sounds with siren-like patterns. They should be combined with a voice alert to foster a quick and specific (target task-oriented) reaction.Practitioner summary: Warning laypeople is of great importance in time-critical hazards. In two remote testing studies (NTotal = 585), auditory alarm sounds with siren-like patterns resulted in the most distinct and emotional perception. Combining the alarm sound with a voice alert adds meaning to the alarm and fosters action intention.Abbreviations: DIN: Deutsches Institut für Normung [German Institute for Standardization]; ISO: International Organization for Standardization; Mixed MANOVA: mixed measures multivariate analysis of variance; rmMANOVA: repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Christian Dobel
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany
| | | | | |
Collapse
|
8
|
Li N, Ross R. Invoking and identifying task-oriented interlocutor confusion in human-robot interaction. Front Robot AI 2023; 10:1244381. [PMID: 38054199 PMCID: PMC10694506 DOI: 10.3389/frobt.2023.1244381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 12/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Successful conversational interaction with a social robot requires not only an assessment of a user's contribution to an interaction, but also awareness of their emotional and attitudinal states as the interaction unfolds. To this end, our research aims to systematically trigger, but then interpret human behaviors to track different states of potential user confusion in interaction so that systems can be primed to adjust their policies in light of users entering confusion states. In this paper, we present a detailed human-robot interaction study to prompt, investigate, and eventually detect confusion states in users. The study itself employs a Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) style design with a Pepper robot to prompt confusion states for task-oriented dialogues in a well-defined manner. The data collected from 81 participants includes audio and visual data, from both the robot's perspective and the environment, as well as participant survey data. From these data, we evaluated the correlations of induced confusion conditions with multimodal data, including eye gaze estimation, head pose estimation, facial emotion detection, silence duration time, and user speech analysis-including emotion and pitch analysis. Analysis shows significant differences of participants' behaviors in states of confusion based on these signals, as well as a strong correlation between confusion conditions and participants own self-reported confusion scores. The paper establishes strong correlations between confusion levels and these observable features, and lays the ground or a more complete social and affect oriented strategy for task-oriented human-robot interaction. The contributions of this paper include the methodology applied, dataset, and our systematic analysis.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Na Li
- School of Computer Science, Technological University, Dublin, Ireland
| | | |
Collapse
|
9
|
Song Z, Ye J, Song X, Zhang Z, Xu P, Shen H. Development and Psychometric Properties of Work Information Anxiety Questionnaire. Psychol Res Behav Manag 2023; 16:4629-4646. [PMID: 38024659 PMCID: PMC10644875 DOI: 10.2147/prbm.s435356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the Work Information Anxiety Questionnaire (WIAQ), and to report on the psychometric properties of the WIAQ. Methods Based on the Approach-Avoidance Conflict theory, and combining previous literature reviews and open-ended interviews, initial scale items for the Work Information Anxiety Questionnaire were developed. Using 324 full-time corporate employees as subjects (Sample 1), an exploratory structural examination of work information anxiety was conducted, including item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and network analysis. An additional 210 corporate employees were selected for formal testing (Sample 2), and the obtained data underwent structural validation, including confirmatory factor analysis, validity testing, and reliability testing. Results The WIAQ (9 items) exhibited a two-factor structure of reception anxiety and missing out anxiety, with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 67.56%. The confirmatory factor model showed good model fit, with cross-group and cross-measurement stability. The Cronbach's α of the WIAQ was 0.899, and the McDonald's ω of the two factors were 0.906 and 0.831 respectively. The WIAQ demonstrated good criterion-related validity with the SAS and DASS. Conclusion The factor structure of the WIAQ is clear, and its reliability and validity indicators meet psychometric requirements. It can serve as an effective tool for measuring work information anxiety.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Zhanmei Song
- College of International Education, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, People’s Republic of China
| | - Jiayang Ye
- College of Education, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, People’s Republic of China
| | - Xudong Song
- School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
| | - Zheng Zhang
- Department of Psychiatry, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, National Center for Mental Disorders, and National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Changsha, People’s Republic of China
| | - Peiyun Xu
- School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China
| | - Hongmei Shen
- School of Public Administration, Beihang University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Benítez-Burraco A. Toward an evolutionary account of the changes in the human pitch vocal system. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1249727. [PMID: 37928592 PMCID: PMC10621747 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1249727] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 11/07/2023] Open
|
11
|
Jach Ł, Moroń M, Jonason PK. Men's Facial Hair Preferences Reflect Facial Hair Impression Management Functions Across Contexts and Men Know It. ARCHIVES OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR 2023; 52:2465-2473. [PMID: 37067629 PMCID: PMC10501953 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-023-02595-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2022] [Revised: 03/17/2023] [Accepted: 03/26/2023] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
Men with distinct facial hair are perceived as more aggressive, dominant, older, and more formidable, mostly by other men. However, despite considerable interest in the social perception of beardedness, only a few studies have explored men's preferences toward facial hair. We investigated men's preferences toward facial hair and whether their judgments of facial hair appropriateness in social situations depended on their actual beardedness and the type of social interaction (N = 509; age: M = 29.35, SD = 7.24). Men preferred having more facial hair, particularly when they have a heavy stubble or a full beard. Men preferred more facial hair for themselves compared to other men, suggesting that men's preferences for facial hair could be based on the frequency-dependent value of a display, namely more value assigned to rarer attributes. Men's judgments of the appropriateness of facial hair were sensitive to social situations for displaying facial hair as well. More facial hair was considered more appropriate for informal situations, especially with another man. Social norms associated with formal interaction could, therefore, limit the impression management functions of beards in intrasexual competition.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Łukasz Jach
- Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, Grażyńskiego Street 53, 40-126, Katowice, Poland.
| | - Marcin Moroń
- Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, Grażyńskiego Street 53, 40-126, Katowice, Poland
| | - Peter K Jonason
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
- Cross-Cultural Psychology Centre, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland
| |
Collapse
|
12
|
Mailhos A, Egea-Caparrós DA, Cabana Á, Martínez-Sánchez F. Voice pitch is negatively associated with sociosexual behavior in males but not in females. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1200065. [PMID: 37496795 PMCID: PMC10367086 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1200065] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2023] [Accepted: 06/12/2023] [Indexed: 07/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Acoustic cues play a major role in social interactions in many animal species. In addition to the semantic contents of human speech, voice attributes - e.g., voice pitch, formant position, formant dispersion, etc. - have been proposed to provide critical information for the assessment of potential rivals and mates. However, prior studies exploring the association of acoustic attributes with reproductive success, or some of its proxies, have produced mixed results. Here, we investigate whether the mean fundamental frequency (F0), formant position (Pf), and formant dispersion (Df) - dimorphic attributes of the human voice - are related to sociosexuality, as measured by the Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R) - a trait also known to exhibit sex differences - in a sample of native Spanish-speaking students (101 males, 147 females). Analyses showed a significant negative correlation between F0 and sociosexual behavior, and between Pf and sociosexual desire in males but not in females. These correlations remained significant after correcting for false discovery rate (FDR) and controlling for age, a potential confounding variable. Our results are consistent with a role of F0 and Pf serving as cues in the mating domain in males but not in females. Alternatively, the association of voice attributes and sociosexual orientation might stem from the parallel effect of male sex hormones both on the male brain and the anatomical structures involved in voice production.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alvaro Mailhos
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
| | | | - Álvaro Cabana
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
| | | |
Collapse
|
13
|
Aung T, Hill AK, Pfefferle D, McLester E, Fuller J, Lawrence JM, Garcia-Nisa I, Kendal RL, Petersdorf M, Higham JP, Galat G, Lameira AR, Apicella CL, Barelli C, Glenn ME, Ramos-Fernandez G, Puts DA. Group size and mating system predict sex differences in vocal fundamental frequency in anthropoid primates. Nat Commun 2023; 14:4069. [PMID: 37429846 PMCID: PMC10333282 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39535-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2022] [Accepted: 06/16/2023] [Indexed: 07/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Vocalizations differ substantially between the sexes in many primates, and low-frequency male vocalizations may be favored by sexual selection because they intimidate rivals and/or attract mates. Sexual dimorphism in fundamental frequency may be more pronounced in species with more intense male mating competition and in those with large group size, where social knowledge is limited and efficient judgment of potential mates and competitors is crucial. These non-mutually exclusive explanations have not been tested simultaneously across primate species. In a sample of vocalizations (n = 1914 recordings) across 37 anthropoid species, we investigated whether fundamental frequency dimorphism evolved in association with increased intensity of mating competition (H1), large group size (H2), multilevel social organization (H3), a trade-off against the intensity of sperm competition (H4), and/or poor acoustic habitats (H5), controlling for phylogeny and body size dimorphism. We show that fundamental frequency dimorphism increased in evolutionary transitions towards larger group size and polygyny. Findings suggest that low-frequency male vocalizations in primates may have been driven by selection to win mating opportunities by avoiding costly fights and may be more important in larger groups, where limited social knowledge affords advantages to rapid assessment of status and threat potential via conspicuous secondary sexual characteristics.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Toe Aung
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
- Psychology and Counseling Department, Immaculata University, Immaculata, PA, USA
| | - Alexander K Hill
- Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Dana Pfefferle
- Welfare and Cognition Group, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Goettingen, Germany & Leibniz-ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center & University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Edward McLester
- Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
| | - James Fuller
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Jenna M Lawrence
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | | | | | | | - James P Higham
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, 25 Waverly Place, New York, NY, USA
| | - Gérard Galat
- IRD (French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development), Montpellier, France
| | | | - Coren L Apicella
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Claudia Barelli
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
| | - Mary E Glenn
- Department of Anthropology, California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, Arcata, CA, USA
| | - Gabriel Ramos-Fernandez
- Institute for Research on Applied Mathematics and Systems and C3-Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - David A Puts
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
14
|
Gisladottir RS, Helgason A, Halldorsson BV, Helgason H, Borsky M, Chien YR, Gudnason J, Gudjonsson SA, Moisik S, Dediu D, Thorleifsson G, Tragante V, Bustamante M, Jonsdottir GA, Stefansdottir L, Rutsdottir G, Magnusson SH, Hardarson M, Ferkingstad E, Halldorsson GH, Rognvaldsson S, Skuladottir A, Ivarsdottir EV, Norddahl G, Thorgeirsson G, Jonsdottir I, Ulfarsson MO, Holm H, Stefansson H, Thorsteinsdottir U, Gudbjartsson DF, Sulem P, Stefansson K. Sequence variants affecting voice pitch in humans. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2023; 9:eabq2969. [PMID: 37294764 PMCID: PMC10256171 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq2969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 05/04/2023] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The genetic basis of the human vocal system is largely unknown, as are the sequence variants that give rise to individual differences in voice and speech. Here, we couple data on diversity in the sequence of the genome with voice and vowel acoustics in speech recordings from 12,901 Icelanders. We show how voice pitch and vowel acoustics vary across the life span and correlate with anthropometric, physiological, and cognitive traits. We found that voice pitch and vowel acoustics have a heritable component and discovered correlated common variants in ABCC9 that associate with voice pitch. The ABCC9 variants also associate with adrenal gene expression and cardiovascular traits. By showing that voice and vowel acoustics are influenced by genetics, we have taken important steps toward understanding the genetics and evolution of the human vocal system.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Rosa S. Gisladottir
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Saemundargata 2, 102 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Agnar Helgason
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Department of Anthropology, University of Iceland, Saemundargata 10, 102 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Bjarni V. Halldorsson
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Department of Engineering, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Hannes Helgason
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Michal Borsky
- Department of Engineering, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Yu-Ren Chien
- Department of Engineering, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Jon Gudnason
- Department of Engineering, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | | | - Scott Moisik
- Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
| | - Dan Dediu
- Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics, University of Barcelona, Gran Via 585, Barcelona 08007, Spain
- University of Barcelona Institute for Complex Systems (UBICS), Martí Franquès 1, Barcelona 08028, Spain
- Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Passeig Lluís Companys 23, Barcelona 08010, Spain
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Egil Ferkingstad
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Gisli H. Halldorsson
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Dunhagi 5, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | | | | | | | | | - Gudmundur Thorgeirsson
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Vatnsmyrarvegur 16, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Ingileif Jonsdottir
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Vatnsmyrarvegur 16, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Magnus O. Ulfarsson
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Dunhagi 5, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Hilma Holm
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | | | - Unnur Thorsteinsdottir
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Vatnsmyrarvegur 16, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Daniel F. Gudbjartsson
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Dunhagi 5, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Patrick Sulem
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Kari Stefansson
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Sturlugata 8, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Vatnsmyrarvegur 16, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
Anikin A. The honest sound of physical effort. PeerJ 2023; 11:e14944. [PMID: 37033726 PMCID: PMC10078454 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.14944] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/02/2023] [Indexed: 04/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Acoustic correlates of physical effort are still poorly understood, even though effort is vocally communicated in a variety of contexts with crucial fitness consequences, including both confrontational and reproductive social interactions. In this study 33 lay participants spoke during a brief, but intense isometric hold (L-sit), first without any voice-related instructions, and then asked either to conceal their effort or to imitate it without actually performing the exercise. Listeners in two perceptual experiments then rated 383 recordings on perceived level of effort (n = 39 listeners) or categorized them as relaxed speech, actual effort, pretended effort, or concealed effort (n = 102 listeners). As expected, vocal effort increased compared to baseline, but the accompanying acoustic changes (increased loudness, pitch, and tense voice quality) were under voluntary control, so that they could be largely suppressed or imitated at will. In contrast, vocal tremor at approximately 10 Hz was most pronounced under actual load, and its experimental addition to relaxed baseline recordings created the impression of concealed effort. In sum, a brief episode of intense physical effort causes pronounced vocal changes, some of which are difficult to control. Listeners can thus estimate the true level of exertion, whether to judge the condition of their opponent in a fight or to monitor a partner’s investment into cooperative physical activities.
Collapse
|
16
|
Articulatory effects on perceptions of men's status and attractiveness. Sci Rep 2023; 13:2647. [PMID: 36788286 PMCID: PMC9929068 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-29173-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2022] [Accepted: 01/31/2023] [Indexed: 02/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Research on heterosexual mating has demonstrated that acoustic parameters (e.g., pitch) of men's voices influence their attractiveness to women and appearance of status and formidability to other men. However, little is known about how men's tendency to clearly articulate their speech influences these important social perceptions. In the current study, we used a repeated-measures design to investigate how men's articulatory clarity or conformity influenced women's (N = 45) evaluations of men's attractiveness for both short- and long-term relationships, and men's (N = 46) evaluations of physical formidability and prestige. Results largely supported our hypotheses: men who enunciated phonemes more distinctly were more attractive to women for long-term relationships than short-term relationships and were perceived by other men to have higher prestige than physical dominance. These findings suggest that aspects of articulatory behavior that influence perceptions of prestige and long-term mating attractiveness may indicate an early social history characterized by high socioeconomic status, likely owing to crystallization of articulatory patterns during the critical period of language development. These articulatory patterns may also be honest signals of condition or disposition owing to the nature of complex, multicomponent traits, which deserve further empirical attention.
Collapse
|
17
|
Shiramizu VKM, Lee AJ, Altenburg D, Feinberg DR, Jones BC. The role of valence, dominance, and pitch in perceptions of artificial intelligence (AI) conversational agents' voices. Sci Rep 2022; 12:22479. [PMID: 36577918 PMCID: PMC9797498 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-27124-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 12/26/2022] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
There is growing concern that artificial intelligence conversational agents (e.g., Siri, Alexa) reinforce voice-based social stereotypes. Because little is known about social perceptions of conversational agents' voices, we investigated (1) the dimensions that underpin perceptions of these synthetic voices and (2) the role that acoustic parameters play in these perceptions. Study 1 (N = 504) found that perceptions of synthetic voices are underpinned by Valence and Dominance components similar to those previously reported for natural human stimuli and that the Dominance component was strongly and negatively related to voice pitch. Study 2 (N = 160) found that experimentally manipulating pitch in synthetic voices directly influenced dominance-related, but not valence-related, perceptions. Collectively, these results suggest that greater consideration of the role that voice pitch plays in dominance-related perceptions when designing conversational agents may be an effective method for controlling stereotypic perceptions of their voices and the downstream consequences of those perceptions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Victor Kenji M. Shiramizu
- grid.11984.350000000121138138School of Psychological Sciences & Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland
| | - Anthony J. Lee
- grid.11918.300000 0001 2248 4331Division of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland
| | - Daria Altenburg
- grid.5342.00000 0001 2069 7798Department of Marketing, Innovation and Organisation, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - David R. Feinberg
- grid.25073.330000 0004 1936 8227Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
| | - Benedict C. Jones
- grid.11984.350000000121138138School of Psychological Sciences & Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland
| |
Collapse
|
18
|
Men’s Expectations for Postconflict Reconciliation with Physically Strong Opponents. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s40806-022-00350-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
|
19
|
Masi M, Mattavelli S, Fasoli F, Brambilla M. When faces and voices come together: Face width‐to‐height ratio and voice pitch contribute independently to social perception. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.2905] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Matteo Masi
- University of Milano‐Bicocca MilanoItaly
- University of SurreyGuildfordUK
| | | | | | | |
Collapse
|
20
|
Chen S, Han C, Wang S, Liu X, Wang B, Wei R, Lei X. Hearing the physical condition: The relationship between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and underlying physiology. Front Psychol 2022; 13:983688. [DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.983688] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
A growing amount of research has shown associations between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and physiological conditions related to reproductive advantage. This paper presented a review of the literature on the relationship between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and sex hormones, body size, and physique. Those physiological conditions are important in reproductive success and mate selection. Regarding sex hormones, there are associations between sex-specific hormones and sexually dimorphic vocal traits; about body size, formant frequencies are more reliable predictors of human body size than pitch/fundamental frequency; with regard to the physique, there is a possible but still controversial association between human voice and strength and combat power, while pitch is more often used as a signal of aggressive intent in conflict. Future research should consider demographic, cross-cultural, cognitive interaction, and emotional motivation influences, in order to more accurately assess the relationship between voice and physiology. Moreover, neurological studies were recommended to gain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary origins and adaptive functions of voice modulation.
Collapse
|
21
|
Groyecka-Bernard A, Pisanski K, Frąckowiak T, Kobylarek A, Kupczyk P, Oleszkiewicz A, Sabiniewicz A, Wróbel M, Sorokowski P. Do Voice-Based Judgments of Socially Relevant Speaker Traits Differ Across Speech Types? JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022; 65:3674-3694. [PMID: 36167068 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-21-00690] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The human voice is a powerful and evolved social tool, with hundreds of studies showing that nonverbal vocal parameters robustly influence listeners' perceptions of socially meaningful speaker traits, ranging from perceived gender and age to attractiveness and trustworthiness. However, these studies have utilized a wide variety of voice stimuli to measure listeners' voice-based judgments of these traits. Here, in the largest scale study known to date, we test whether listeners judge the same unseen speakers differently depending on the complexity of the neutral speech stimulus, from single vowel sounds to a full paragraph. METHOD In a playback experiment testing 2,618 listeners, we examine whether commonly studied voice-based judgments of attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, femininity/masculinity, and health differ if listeners hear isolated vowels, a series of vowels, single words, single sentences (greeting), counting from 1 to 10, or a full paragraph recited aloud (Rainbow Passage), recorded from the same 208 men and women. Data were collected using a custom-designed interface in which vocalizers and traits were randomly assigned to raters. RESULTS Linear-mixed models show that the type of voice stimulus does indeed consistently affect listeners' judgments. Overall, ratings of attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, health, masculinity among men, and femininity among women increase as speech duration increases. At the same time, speaker-level regression analyses show that interindividual differences in perceived speaker traits are largely preserved across voice stimuli, especially among those of a similar duration. CONCLUSIONS Socially relevant perceptions of speakers are not wholly changed but rather moderated by the length of their speech. Indeed, the same vocalizer is perceived in a similar way regardless of which neutral statements they speak, with the caveat that longer utterances explain the most shared variance in listeners' judgments and elicit the highest ratings on all traits, possibly by providing additional nonverbal information to listeners. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21158890.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Katarzyna Pisanski
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland
- ENES Bioacoustics Research Laboratory, University of Saint-Etienne, France
- CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, Université Lyon 2, France
| | | | | | - Piotr Kupczyk
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland
| | - Anna Oleszkiewicz
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland
- Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otolaryngology, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
| | - Agnieszka Sabiniewicz
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland
- Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otolaryngology, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
| | - Monika Wróbel
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland
| | | |
Collapse
|
22
|
Gender and Context-Specific Effects of Vocal Dominance and Trustworthiness on Leadership Decisions. ADAPTIVE HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND PHYSIOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s40750-022-00194-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/16/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Objective
The evolutionary-contingency hypothesis, which suggests that preferences for leaders are context-dependent, has found relatively consistent support from research investigating leadership decisions based on facial pictures. Here, we test whether these results transfer to leadership decisions based on voice recordings. We examined how dominance and trustworthiness perceptions relate to leadership decisions in wartime and peacetime contexts and whether effects differ by a speaker’s gender. Further, we investigate two cues that might be related to leadership decisions, as well as dominance and trustworthiness perceptions: voice pitch and strength of regional accent.
Methods
We conducted a preregistered online study with 125 raters and recordings of 120 speakers (61 men, 59 women) from different parts in Germany. Raters were randomly distributed into four rating conditions: dominance, trustworthiness, hypothetical vote (wartime) and hypothetical vote (peacetime).
Results
We find that dominant speakers were more likely to be voted for in a wartime context while trustworthy speakers were more likely to be voted for in a peacetime context. Voice pitch functions as a main cue for dominance perceptions, while strength of regional accent functions as a main cue for trustworthiness perceptions.
Conclusions
This study adds to a stream of research that suggests that (a) people’s voices contain important information based on which we form social impressions and (b) we prefer different types of leaders across different contexts. Future research should disentangle effects of gender bias in leadership decisions and investigate underlying mechanisms that influence how people’s voices contribute to achieving social status.
Collapse
|
23
|
Sex differences are insufficient evidence of ecological adaptations in human females. Behav Brain Sci 2022; 45:e130. [PMID: 35875966 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x22000541] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Benenson et al. postulate that human females evolved unique survival adaptations to facilitate maternal and grandmaternal care. This hypothesis is consistent with the broader hypothesis that female phenotypes are more ecologically optimal, but further evidence is needed to make a compelling case that sex differences in self-protection are not primarily the result of more intense sexual selection on males.
Collapse
|
24
|
Mailhos A, Egea-Caparrós DA, Guerrero Rodríguez C, Luzardo M, Kiskimska ND, Martínez Sánchez F. Vocal Cues to Male Physical Formidability. Front Psychol 2022; 13:879102. [PMID: 35865705 PMCID: PMC9294471 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.879102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2022] [Accepted: 06/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Animal vocalizations convey important information about the emitter, including sex, age, biological quality, and emotional state. Early on, Darwin proposed that sex differences in auditory signals and vocalizations were driven by sexual selection mechanisms. In humans, studies on the association between male voice attributes and physical formidability have thus far reported mixed results. Hence, with a view to furthering our understanding of the role of human voice in advertising physical formidability, we sought to identify acoustic attributes of male voices associated with physical formidability proxies. Mean fundamental frequency (F0), formant dispersion (Df), formant position (Pf), and vocal tract length (VTL) data from a sample of 101 male voices was analyzed for potential associations with height, weight, and maximal handgrip strength (HGS). F0 correlated negatively with HGS; Pf showed negative correlations with HGS, height and weight, whereas VTL positively correlated with HGS, height and weight. All zero-order correlations remained significant after controlling for false discovery rate (FDR) with the Benjamini–Hochberg method. After controlling for height and weight—and controlling for FDR—the correlation between F0 and HGS remained significant. In addition, to evaluate the ability of human male voices to advertise physical formidability to potential mates, 151 heterosexual female participants rated the voices of the 10 strongest and the 10 weakest males from the original sample for perceived physical strength, and given that physical strength is a desirable attribute in male partners, perceived attractiveness. Generalized linear mixed model analyses—which allow for generalization of inferences to other samples of both raters and targets—failed to support a significant association of perceived strength or attractiveness from voices alone and actual physical strength. These results add to the growing body of work on the role of human voices in conveying relevant biological information.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alvaro Mailhos
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- Centro de Experimentación e Innovación Social, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- *Correspondence: Alvaro Mailhos,
| | | | - Cristina Guerrero Rodríguez
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain
- Instituto Universitario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Social Sostenible, Universidad de Cádiz, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
| | - Mario Luzardo
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- Centro Universitario Regional del Este, Universidad de la República, Maldonado, Uruguay
| | | | | |
Collapse
|
25
|
Pandeirada JNS, Madeira M, Fernandes NL, Marinho P, Vasconcelos M. Judgements of Social Dominance From Faces and Related Variables. Front Psychol 2022; 13:873147. [PMID: 35578657 PMCID: PMC9106557 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.873147] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2022] [Accepted: 03/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Josefa N S Pandeirada
- William James Center for Research, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
| | - Mariana Madeira
- William James Center for Research, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
| | - Natália Lisandra Fernandes
- William James Center for Research, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
| | - Patrícia Marinho
- Social Services of University of Aveiro, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
| | - Marco Vasconcelos
- William James Center for Research, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
| |
Collapse
|
26
|
Lassek WD, Gaulin SJC. Substantial but Misunderstood Human Sexual Dimorphism Results Mainly From Sexual Selection on Males and Natural Selection on Females. Front Psychol 2022; 13:859931. [PMID: 35664212 PMCID: PMC9156798 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.859931] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2022] [Accepted: 03/28/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Human sexual dimorphism has been widely misunderstood. A large literature has underestimated the effect of differences in body composition and the role of male contest competition for mates. It is often assumed that sexually dimorphic traits reflect a history of sexual selection, but natural selection frequently builds different phenotypes in males and females. The relatively small sex difference in stature (∼7%) and its decrease during human evolution have been widely presumed to indicate decreased male contest competition for mates. However, females likely increased in stature relative to males in order to successfully deliver large-brained neonates through a bipedally-adapted pelvis. Despite the relatively small differences in stature and body mass (∼16%), there are marked sex differences in body composition. Across multiple samples from groups with different nutrition, males typically have 36% more lean body mass, 65% more muscle mass, and 72% more arm muscle than women, yielding parallel sex differences in strength. These sex differences in muscle and strength are comparable to those seen in primates where sexual selection, arising from aggressive male mating competition, has produced high levels of dimorphism. Body fat percentage shows a reverse pattern, with females having ∼1.6 times more than males and depositing that fat in different body regions than males. We argue that these sex differences in adipose arise mainly from natural selection on women to accumulate neurodevelopmental resources.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Steven J. C. Gaulin
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States
| |
Collapse
|
27
|
Yu ACL. Perceptual Cue Weighting Is Influenced by the Listener's Gender and Subjective Evaluations of the Speaker: The Case of English Stop Voicing. Front Psychol 2022; 13:840291. [PMID: 35529558 PMCID: PMC9067435 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.840291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2021] [Accepted: 02/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions and their boundaries are generally fuzzy and ambiguous in part because listeners often give differential weighting to these cue dimensions during phonetic categorization. This study explored how a listener's perception of a speaker's socio-indexical and personality characteristics influences the listener's perceptual cue weighting. In a matched-guise study, three groups of listeners classified a series of gender-neutral /b/-/p/ continua that vary in VOT and F0 at the onset of the following vowel. Listeners were assigned to one of three prompt conditions (i.e., a visually male talker, a visually female talker, or audio-only) and rated the talker in terms of vocal (and facial, in the visual prompt conditions) gender prototypicality, attractiveness, friendliness, confidence, trustworthiness, and gayness. Male listeners and listeners who saw a male face showed less reliance on VOT compared to listeners in the other conditions. Listeners' visual evaluation of the talker also affected their weighting of VOT and onset F0 cues, although the effects of facial impressions differ depending on the gender of the listener. The results demonstrate that individual differences in perceptual cue weighting are modulated by the listener's gender and his/her subjective evaluation of the talker. These findings lend support for exemplar-based models of speech perception and production where socio-indexical features are encoded as a part of the episodic traces in the listeners' mental lexicon. This study also shed light on the relationship between individual variation in cue weighting and community-level sound change by demonstrating that VOT and onset F0 co-variation in North American English has acquired a certain degree of socio-indexical significance.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alan C L Yu
- Chicago Phonology Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
| |
Collapse
|
28
|
Roche JM, Morgan SD, Fisk S. Gender stereotypes drive perceptual differences of vocal confidence. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2022; 151:3031. [PMID: 35649917 DOI: 10.1121/10.0010382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2021] [Accepted: 04/15/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
One's ability to express confidence is critical to achieve one's goals in a social context-such as commanding respect from others, establishing higher social status, and persuading others. How individuals perceive confidence may be shaped by the socio-indexical cues produced by the speaker. In the current production/perception study, we asked four speakers (two cisgender women/men) to answer trivia questions under three speaking contexts: natural, overconfident, and underconfident (i.e., lack of confidence). An evaluation of the speakers' acoustics indicated that the speakers significantly varied their acoustic cues as a function of speaking context and that the women and men had significantly different acoustic cues. The speakers' answers to the trivia questions in the three contexts (natural, overconfident, underconfident) were then presented to listeners (N = 26) in a social judgment task using a computer mouse-tracking paradigm. Listeners were sensitive to the speakers' acoustic modulations of confidence and differentially interpreted these cues based on the perceived gender of the speaker, thereby impacting listeners' cognition and social decision making. We consider, then, how listeners' social judgments about confidence were impacted by gender stereotypes about women and men from social, heuristic-based processes.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer M Roche
- Schools of Health Sciences and Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences, Kent State University, 800 Summit Street, Kent, Ohio 44224, USA
| | - Shae D Morgan
- Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery and Communicative Disorders, University of Louisville, 401 East Chestnut Street, Suite 170, Louisville, Kentucky 40202, USA
| | - Susan Fisk
- Department of Sociology, Kent State University, 800 Summit Street, Kent, Ohio 44224, USA
| |
Collapse
|
29
|
Chen Zeng T, Cheng JT, Henrich J. Dominance in humans. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20200451. [PMID: 35000450 PMCID: PMC8743883 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0451] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2021] [Accepted: 12/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Dominance captures behavioural patterns found in social hierarchies that arise from agonistic interactions in which some individuals coercively exploit their control over costs and benefits to extract deference from others, often through aggression, threats and/or intimidation. Accumulating evidence points to its importance in humans and its separation from prestige-an alternate avenue to high status in which status arises from information (e.g. knowledge, skill, etc.) or other non-rival goods. In this review, we provide an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of dominance as a concept within evolutionary biology, discuss the challenges of applying it to humans and consider alternative theoretical accounts which assert that dominance is relevant to understanding status in humans. We then review empirical evidence for its continued importance in human groups, including the effects of dominance-independently of prestige-on measurable outcomes such as social influence and reproductive fitness, evidence for specialized dominance psychology, and evidence for gender-specific effects. Finally, because human-specific factors such as norms and coalitions may place bounds on purely coercive status-attainment strategies, we end by considering key situations and contexts that increase the likelihood for dominance status to coexist alongside prestige status within the same individual, including how: (i) institutional power and authority tend to elicit dominance; (ii) dominance-enhancing traits can at times generate benefits for others (prestige); and (iii) certain dominance cues and ethology may lead to mis-attributions of prestige. This article is part of the theme issue 'The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies'.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Tian Chen Zeng
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Joey T Cheng
- Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada
| | - Joseph Henrich
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| |
Collapse
|
30
|
Pisanski K, Bryant GA, Cornec C, Anikin A, Reby D. Form follows function in human nonverbal vocalisations. ETHOL ECOL EVOL 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/03949370.2022.2026482] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Katarzyna Pisanski
- ENES Sensory Neuro-Ethology Lab, CRNL, Jean Monnet University of Saint Étienne, UMR 5293, St-Étienne 42023, France
- CNRS French National Centre for Scientific Research, DDL Dynamics of Language Lab, University of Lyon 2, Lyon 69007, France
| | - Gregory A. Bryant
- Department of Communication, Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Clément Cornec
- ENES Sensory Neuro-Ethology Lab, CRNL, Jean Monnet University of Saint Étienne, UMR 5293, St-Étienne 42023, France
| | - Andrey Anikin
- ENES Sensory Neuro-Ethology Lab, CRNL, Jean Monnet University of Saint Étienne, UMR 5293, St-Étienne 42023, France
- Division of Cognitive Science, Lund University, Lund 22100, Sweden
| | - David Reby
- ENES Sensory Neuro-Ethology Lab, CRNL, Jean Monnet University of Saint Étienne, UMR 5293, St-Étienne 42023, France
| |
Collapse
|
31
|
Bryant GA. Vocal communication across cultures: theoretical and methodological issues. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20200387. [PMID: 34775828 PMCID: PMC8591381 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2021] [Accepted: 08/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The study of human vocal communication has been conducted primarily in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic (WEIRD) societies. Recently, cross-cultural investigations in several domains of voice research have been expanding into more diverse populations. Theoretically, it is important to understand how universals and cultural variations interact in vocal production and perception, but cross-cultural voice research presents many methodological challenges. Experimental methods typically used in WEIRD societies are often not possible to implement in many populations such as rural, small-scale societies. Moreover, theoretical and methodological issues are often unnecessarily intertwined. Here, I focus on three areas of cross-cultural voice modulation research: (i) vocal signalling of formidability and dominance, (ii) vocal emotions, and (iii) production and perception of infant-directed speech. Research in these specific areas illustrates challenges that apply more generally across the human behavioural sciences but also reveals promise as we develop our understanding of the evolution of human communication. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)'.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Gregory A. Bryant
- Department of Communication, Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, 2225 Rolfe Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA
| |
Collapse
|
32
|
Fahmy S, Kan PF, Walentas Lewon J. The effects of theatre-based vocal empowerment on young Egyptian women's vocal and language characteristics. PLoS One 2022; 16:e0261294. [PMID: 34972115 PMCID: PMC8719750 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261294] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2020] [Accepted: 11/30/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of a theatre-based vocal empowerment program on the vocal and language characteristics and the self-perceptions of young bilingual Egyptian women. The program used applied theatre, a dramatic practice that promotes civic action by utilizing improvisational techniques to engage participants in exploring solutions to self-identified community concerns. These techniques supported participants' pursuit of vocal empowerment: the ability to comfortably express their intended content with a clear audible voice, accompanied by the belief that what they had to say was worthwhile. The program was implemented in Alexandria and Aswan, two Egyptian cities in different regions of the country, with distinct socio-economic profiles. Thirty-six young women from Aswan and nineteen from Alexandria participated. The program was facilitated in Arabic, for 90 minutes per day over twelve consecutive days in 2018. Participants in both groups spoke Arabic as a home language and studied English in school settings but differed in their educational experiences and English proficiency. The vocal and language characteristics of each participant were tested in Arabic and English pre- and post- program using a spontaneous speech task and a reading aloud task. Their self-perceptions were evaluated through a vocal self-perception survey. Results indicated that participants responded differently in each city. In Alexandria, participants showed significant improvement in language skills (e.g., mean length of utterance). In contrast, participants in Aswan showed a significant change in fundamental frequency. Overall, the self-surveys indicated that all participants experienced an increased sense of confidence, a stronger belief in self-authorship, and an increased desire to voice their opinions clearly in public; however, there were subtle differences between the groups. In analyzing these results, we conclude that to design effective vocal empowerment outreach programs internationally, it is necessary to consider participants' cultural backgrounds, language diversity, and socio-economic status.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Fahmy
- Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Pui-Fong Kan
- Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
| | - Jen Walentas Lewon
- Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
| |
Collapse
|
33
|
Kleisner K, Leongómez JD, Pisanski K, Fiala V, Cornec C, Groyecka-Bernard A, Butovskaya M, Reby D, Sorokowski P, Akoko RM. Predicting strength from aggressive vocalizations versus speech in African bushland and urban communities. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200403. [PMID: 34719250 PMCID: PMC8558769 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0403] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/23/2021] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
The human voice carries information about a vocalizer's physical strength that listeners can perceive and that may influence mate choice and intrasexual competition. Yet, reliable acoustic correlates of strength in human speech remain unclear. Compared to speech, aggressive nonverbal vocalizations (roars) may function to maximize perceived strength, suggesting that their acoustic structure has been selected to communicate formidability, similar to the vocal threat displays of other animals. Here, we test this prediction in two non-WEIRD African samples: an urban community of Cameroonians and rural nomadic Hadza hunter-gatherers in the Tanzanian bushlands. Participants produced standardized speech and volitional roars and provided handgrip strength measures. Using acoustic analysis and information-theoretic multi-model inference and averaging techniques, we show that strength can be measured from both speech and roars, and as predicted, strength is more reliably gauged from roars than vowels, words or greetings. The acoustic structure of roars explains 40-70% of the variance in actual strength within adults of either sex. However, strength is predicted by multiple acoustic parameters whose combinations vary by sex, sample and vocal type. Thus, while roars may maximally signal strength, more research is needed to uncover consistent and likely interacting acoustic correlates of strength in the human voice. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)'.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karel Kleisner
- Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Charles University, Prague, 12800, Czech Republic
| | - Juan David Leongómez
- Human Behaviour Lab (LACH), Faculty of Psychology, Universidad El Bosque, Bogota, DC, 110121, Colombia
| | - Katarzyna Pisanski
- Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, Jean Monnet University of Saint-Etienne, 42100, France
- CNRS | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, Université Lyon 2, Lyon, 69363, France
- Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, 50–527, Poland
| | - Vojtěch Fiala
- Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Charles University, Prague, 12800, Czech Republic
| | - Clément Cornec
- Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, Jean Monnet University of Saint-Etienne, 42100, France
| | | | - Marina Butovskaya
- Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Russia
- Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, 125047, Russia
| | - David Reby
- Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, Jean Monnet University of Saint-Etienne, 42100, France
| | | | - Robert Mbe Akoko
- Department of Communication and Development Studies, University of Bamenda, PO Box 39, Bambili, Bamenda, Cameroon
| |
Collapse
|
34
|
Hughes SM, Puts DA. Vocal modulation in human mating and competition. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200388. [PMID: 34719246 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The human voice is dynamic, and people modulate their voices across different social interactions. This article presents a review of the literature examining natural vocal modulation in social contexts relevant to human mating and intrasexual competition. Altering acoustic parameters during speech, particularly pitch, in response to mating and competitive contexts can influence social perception and indicate certain qualities of the speaker. For instance, a lowered voice pitch is often used to exert dominance, display status and compete with rivals. Changes in voice can also serve as a salient medium for signalling a person's attraction to another, and there is evidence to support the notion that attraction and/or romantic interest can be distinguished through vocal tones alone. Individuals can purposely change their vocal behaviour in attempt to sound more attractive and to facilitate courtship success. Several findings also point to the effectiveness of vocal change as a mechanism for communicating relationship status. As future studies continue to explore vocal modulation in the arena of human mating, we will gain a better understanding of how and why vocal modulation varies across social contexts and its impact on receiver psychology. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)'.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Susan M Hughes
- Psychology Department, Albright College, Reading, PA 19612, USA
| | - David A Puts
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
| |
Collapse
|
35
|
Pisanski K, Groyecka-Bernard A, Sorokowski P. Human voice pitch measures are robust across a variety of speech recordings: methodological and theoretical implications. Biol Lett 2021; 17:20210356. [PMID: 34582736 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Fundamental frequency (fo), perceived as voice pitch, is the most sexually dimorphic, perceptually salient and intensively studied voice parameter in human nonverbal communication. Thousands of studies have linked human fo to biological and social speaker traits and life outcomes, from reproductive to economic. Critically, researchers have used myriad speech stimuli to measure fo and infer its functional relevance, from individual vowels to longer bouts of spontaneous speech. Here, we acoustically analysed fo in nearly 1000 affectively neutral speech utterances (vowels, words, counting, greetings, read paragraphs and free spontaneous speech) produced by the same 154 men and women, aged 18-67, with two aims: first, to test the methodological validity of comparing fo measures from diverse speech stimuli, and second, to test the prediction that the vast inter-individual differences in habitual fo found between same-sex adults are preserved across speech types. Indeed, despite differences in linguistic content, duration, scripted or spontan--eous production and within-individual variability, we show that 42-81% of inter-individual differences in fo can be explained between any two speech types. Beyond methodological implications, together with recent evidence that inter-individual differences in fo are remarkably stable across the lifespan and generalize to emotional speech and nonverbal vocalizations, our results further substantiate voice pitch as a robust and reliable biomarker in human communication.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Katarzyna Pisanski
- University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.,CNRS/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, Université Lyon 2, Lyon, France.,Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, Jean Monnet University of Saint-Etienne, France
| | - Agata Groyecka-Bernard
- University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.,Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany
| | | |
Collapse
|
36
|
Schild C, Zettler I. Linking voice pitch to fighting success in male amateur mixed martial arts athletes and boxers. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2021; 3:e46. [PMID: 37588524 PMCID: PMC10427264 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2021.45] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Whereas voice pitch is strongly linked to people's perceptions in contexts of sexual selection, such as attractiveness and dominance, evidence that links voice pitch to actual behaviour or the formidability of a speaker is sparse and mixed. In this registered report, we investigated how male speakers' voice pitch is linked to fighting success in a dataset comprising 135 (amateur) mixed martial arts and 189 (amateur) boxing fights. Based on the assumption that voice pitch is an honest signal of formidability, we expected lower voice pitch to be linked to higher fighting success. The results indicated no significant relation between a fighter's voice pitch, as directly measured before a fight, and successive fighting success in both mixed martial arts fighters and boxers.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Christoph Schild
- Department of Psychology, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2a, 57068Siegen, Germany
| | - Ingo Zettler
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 2a, 1353Copenhagen, Denmark
| |
Collapse
|
37
|
Guyer JJ, Briñol P, Vaughan-Johnston TI, Fabrigar LR, Moreno L, Petty RE. Paralinguistic Features Communicated through Voice can Affect Appraisals of Confidence and Evaluative Judgments. JOURNAL OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 2021; 45:479-504. [PMID: 34744233 PMCID: PMC8553728 DOI: 10.1007/s10919-021-00374-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
This article unpacks the basic mechanisms by which paralinguistic features communicated through the voice can affect evaluative judgments and persuasion. Special emphasis is placed on exploring the rapidly emerging literature on vocal features linked to appraisals of confidence (e.g., vocal pitch, intonation, speech rate, loudness, etc.), and their subsequent impact on information processing and meta-cognitive processes of attitude change. The main goal of this review is to advance understanding of the different psychological processes by which paralinguistic markers of confidence can affect attitude change, specifying the conditions under which they are more likely to operate. In sum, we highlight the importance of considering basic mechanisms of attitude change to predict when and why appraisals of paralinguistic markers of confidence can lead to more or less persuasion.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Joshua J. Guyer
- Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Pablo Briñol
- Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | | | | | - Lorena Moreno
- Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Richard E. Petty
- Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA
| |
Collapse
|
38
|
Luoto S, Varella MAC. Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary-Developmental Origins. Front Psychol 2021; 12:633862. [PMID: 33815218 PMCID: PMC8015803 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633862] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/26/2020] [Accepted: 02/12/2021] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global societal, economic, and social upheaval unseen in living memory. There have been substantial cross-national differences in the kinds of policies implemented by political decision-makers to prevent the spread of the virus, to test the population, and to manage infected patients. Among other factors, these policies vary with politicians' sex: early findings indicate that, on average, female leaders seem more focused on minimizing direct human suffering caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, while male leaders implement riskier short-term decisions, possibly aiming to minimize economic disruptions. These sex differences are consistent with broader findings in psychology, reflecting women's stronger empathy, higher pathogen disgust, health concern, care-taking orientation, and dislike for the suffering of other people-as well as men's higher risk-taking, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and focus on financial indicators of success and status. This review article contextualizes sex differences in pandemic leadership in an evolutionary framework. Evolution by natural selection is the only known process in nature that organizes organisms into higher degrees of functional order, or counteracts the unavoidable disorder that would otherwise ensue, and is therefore essential for explaining the origins of human sex differences. Differential sexual selection and parental investment between males and females, together with the sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain, drive sex differences in cognition and behavioral dispositions, underlying men's and women's leadership styles and decision-making during a global pandemic. According to the sexually dimorphic leadership specialization hypothesis, general psychobehavioral sex differences have been exapted during human evolution to create sexually dimorphic leadership styles. They may be facultatively co-opted by societies and/or followers when facing different kinds of ecological and/or sociopolitical threats, such as disease outbreaks or intergroup aggression. Early evidence indicates that against the invisible viral foe that can bring nations to their knees, the strategic circumspection of empathic feminine health "worriers" may bring more effective and humanitarian outcomes than the devil-may-care incaution of masculine risk-taking "warriors".
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Severi Luoto
- English, Drama and Writing Studies, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | | |
Collapse
|
39
|
|
40
|
Albert G, Arnocky S, Puts DA, Hodges-Simeon CR. Can listeners assess men's self-reported health from their voice? EVOL HUM BEHAV 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.08.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
|
41
|
Elevated recognition accuracy for low-pitched male voices in men with higher threat potential: Further evidence for the retaliation-cost model in humans. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.08.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
|
42
|
Abstract
Abstract. Two experiments examined the impact of voice pitch on gender stereotyping. Participants listened to a text read by a female (Study 1; N = 171) or male (Study 2, N = 151) speaker, whose voice pitch was manipulated to be high or low. They rated the speaker on positive and negative facets of masculinity and femininity, competence, and likability. They also indicated their own gendered self-concept. High pitch was associated with the ascription of more feminine traits and greater likability. The high-pitch female speaker was rated as less competent, and the high-pitch male speaker was perceived as less masculine. Text content and participants’ gendered self-concept did not moderate the pitch effect. The findings underline the importance of voice pitch for impression formation.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Krahé
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Germany
| | | | - Meike Herzberg
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
43
|
Aung T, Rosenfield KA, Puts D. Male voice pitch mediates the relationship between objective and perceived formidability. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.08.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
|
44
|
Hodges-Simeon CR, Grail GPO, Albert G, Groll MD, Stepp CE, Carré JM, Arnocky SA. Testosterone therapy masculinizes speech and gender presentation in transgender men. Sci Rep 2021; 11:3494. [PMID: 33568701 PMCID: PMC7876019 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82134-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2020] [Accepted: 12/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Voice is one of the most noticeably dimorphic traits in humans and plays a central role in gender presentation. Transgender males seeking to align internal identity and external gender expression frequently undergo testosterone (T) therapy to masculinize their voices and other traits. We aimed to determine the importance of changes in vocal masculinity for transgender men and to determine the effectiveness of T therapy at masculinizing three speech parameters: fundamental frequency (i.e., pitch) mean and variation (fo and fo-SD) and estimated vocal tract length (VTL) derived from formant frequencies. Thirty transgender men aged 20 to 40 rated their satisfaction with traits prior to and after T therapy and contributed speech samples and salivary T. Similar-aged cisgender men and women contributed speech samples for comparison. We show that transmen viewed voice change as critical to transition success compared to other masculine traits. However, T therapy may not be sufficient to fully masculinize speech: while fo and fo-SD were largely indistinguishable from cismen, VTL was intermediate between cismen and ciswomen. fo was correlated with salivary T, and VTL associated with T therapy duration. This argues for additional approaches, such as behavior therapy and/or longer duration of hormone therapy, to improve speech transition.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Carolyn R Hodges-Simeon
- Department of Anthropology, Boston University, 232 Bay Stated Rd., Room 102-B, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
| | - Graham P O Grail
- Department of Anthropology, Boston University, 232 Bay Stated Rd., Room 102-B, Boston, MA, 02215, USA
- Department of Forensic Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA
| | - Graham Albert
- Department of Anthropology, Boston University, 232 Bay Stated Rd., Room 102-B, Boston, MA, 02215, USA
| | - Matti D Groll
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Cara E Stepp
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Justin M Carré
- Department of Psychology, Nipissing University, North Bay, ON, Canada
| | - Steven A Arnocky
- Department of Psychology, Nipissing University, North Bay, ON, Canada
| |
Collapse
|
45
|
Affiliation(s)
- Jessie L Werner
- Department of Emergency Medicine, The Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI
| | - Resa E Lewiss
- Department of Emergency Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
| | - Gita Pensa
- Department of Emergency Medicine, The Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI
| | - Alyson J McGregor
- Department of Emergency Medicine, The Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI
| |
Collapse
|
46
|
Low fundamental and formant frequencies predict fighting ability among male mixed martial arts fighters. Sci Rep 2021; 11:905. [PMID: 33441596 PMCID: PMC7806622 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79408-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2020] [Accepted: 12/08/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Human voice pitch is highly sexually dimorphic and eminently quantifiable, making it an ideal phenotype for studying the influence of sexual selection. In both traditional and industrial populations, lower pitch in men predicts mating success, reproductive success, and social status and shapes social perceptions, especially those related to physical formidability. Due to practical and ethical constraints however, scant evidence tests the central question of whether male voice pitch and other acoustic measures indicate actual fighting ability in humans. To address this, we examined pitch, pitch variability, and formant position of 475 mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters from an elite fighting league, with each fighter's acoustic measures assessed from multiple voice recordings extracted from audio or video interviews available online (YouTube, Google Video, podcasts), totaling 1312 voice recording samples. In four regression models each predicting a separate measure of fighting ability (win percentages, number of fights, Elo ratings, and retirement status), no acoustic measure significantly predicted fighting ability above and beyond covariates. However, after fight statistics, fight history, height, weight, and age were used to extract underlying dimensions of fighting ability via factor analysis, pitch and formant position negatively predicted "Fighting Experience" and "Size" factor scores in a multivariate regression model, explaining 3-8% of the variance. Our findings suggest that lower male pitch and formants may be valid cues of some components of fighting ability in men.
Collapse
|
47
|
Han C, Watkins CD, Nan Y, Ou J, Lei X, Li X, Wu Y. Exogenous testosterone decreases men's sensitivity to vocal cues of male dominance. Horm Behav 2021; 127:104871. [PMID: 33058835 DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2020.104871] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2020] [Revised: 08/25/2020] [Accepted: 09/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Assessing dominance is important for effective social interactions, and prior research suggests that testosterone is associated with men's dominance perceptions. The present study tested for a causal effect of exogenous testosterone on men's sensitivity to vocal cues of other men's dominance, an important parameter in male-male competition across species. One hundred and thirty-nine Chinese men received a single dose (150 mg) of testosterone or placebo gel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-participant design. Participants reported their own dominance and judged other men's dominance from voices. Men's dominance sensitivity was significantly weaker in the testosterone group compared to those in the placebo group. Moreover, men's dominance sensitivity was negatively associated with their self-reported dominance in our Chinese sample, consistent with findings from Western populations. These results indicate that exogenous testosterone has a causal effect in decreasing men's dominance sensitivity, consistent with the Challenge Hypothesis, suggesting that the fluctuation of testosterone concentration mediates individuals' behaviors. Additionally, the present study could motivate further work on vocal assessment in the context of competition in humans and other species.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Chengyang Han
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Christopher D Watkins
- Division of Psychology, School of Applied Sciences, Abertay University, Dundee, United Kingdom
| | - Yu Nan
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Jianxin Ou
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Xue Lei
- School of Business Administration, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China
| | - Xiangqian Li
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
| | - Yin Wu
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
| |
Collapse
|
48
|
Richardson T, Waddington M, Gilman RT. Young, formidable men show greater sensitivity to facial cues of dominance. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
|
49
|
Schild C, Aung T, Kordsmeyer TL, Cardenas RA, Puts DA, Penke L. Linking human male vocal parameters to perceptions, body morphology, strength and hormonal profiles in contexts of sexual selection. Sci Rep 2020; 10:21296. [PMID: 33277544 PMCID: PMC7719159 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77940-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2020] [Accepted: 11/18/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Sexual selection appears to have shaped the acoustic signals of diverse species, including humans. Deep, resonant vocalizations in particular may function in attracting mates and/or intimidating same-sex competitors. Evidence for these adaptive functions in human males derives predominantly from perception studies in which vocal acoustic parameters were manipulated using specialist software. This approach affords tight experimental control but provides little ecological validity, especially when the target acoustic parameters vary naturally with other parameters. Furthermore, such experimental studies provide no information about what acoustic variables indicate about the speaker-that is, why attention to vocal cues may be favored in intrasexual and intersexual contexts. Using voice recordings with high ecological validity from 160 male speakers and biomarkers of condition, including baseline cortisol and testosterone levels, body morphology and strength, we tested a series of pre-registered hypotheses relating to both perceptions and underlying condition of the speaker. We found negative curvilinear and negative linear relationships between male fundamental frequency (fo) and female perceptions of attractiveness and male perceptions of dominance. In addition, cortisol and testosterone negatively interacted in predicting fo, and strength and measures of body size negatively predicted formant frequencies (Pf). Meta-analyses of the present results and those from two previous samples confirmed that fonegatively predicted testosterone only among men with lower cortisol levels. This research offers empirical evidence of possible evolutionary functions for attention to men's vocal characteristics in contexts of sexual selection.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Christoph Schild
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 2A, 1353, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Toe Aung
- Department of Anthropology and Center for Brain, Behavior and Cognition, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
| | - Tobias L Kordsmeyer
- Department of Psychology and Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, University of Goettingen, Gosslerstrasse 14, 37073, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Rodrigo A Cardenas
- Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
| | - David A Puts
- Department of Anthropology and Center for Brain, Behavior and Cognition, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
| | - Lars Penke
- Department of Psychology and Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, University of Goettingen, Gosslerstrasse 14, 37073, Göttingen, Germany.
| |
Collapse
|
50
|
Voice Pitch – A Valid Indicator of One’s Unfaithfulness in Committed Relationships? ADAPTIVE HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND PHYSIOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s40750-020-00154-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Objectives
When judging a male speakers’ likelihood to act sexually unfaithful in a committed relationship, listeners rely on the speakers’ voice pitch such that lower voice pitch is perceived as indicating being more unfaithful. In line with this finding, a recent study (Schild et al. Behavioral Ecology, 2020) provided first evidence that voice pitch might indeed be a valid cue to sexual infidelity in men. In this study, male speakers with lower voice pitch, as indicated by lower mean fundamental frequency (mean F0), were actually more likely to report having been sexually unfaithful in the past. Although these results fit the literature on vocal perceptions in contexts of sexual selection, the study was, as stated by the authors, underpowered. Further, the study solely focused on male speakers, which leaves it open whether these findings are also transferable to female speakers.
Methods
We reanalyzed three datasets (Asendorpf et al. European Journal of Personality, 25, 16–30, 2011; Penke and Asendorpf Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1113–1135, 2008; Stern et al. 2020) that include voice recordings and infidelity data of overall 865 individuals (63,36% female) in order to test the replicability of and further extend past research.
Results
A significant negative link between mean F0 and self-reported infidelity was found in only one out of two datasets for men and only one out of three datasets for women. Two meta-analyses (accounting for the sample sizes and including data of Schild et al. 2020), however, suggest that lower mean F0 might be a valid indicator of higher probability of self-reported infidelity in both men and women.
Conclusions
In line with prior research, higher masculinity, as indicated by lower mean F0, seems to be linked to self-reported infidelity in both men and women. However, given methodological shortcomings, future studies should set out to further delve into these findings.
Collapse
|