Dominance and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice pitch

Inter-individual differences in human fundamental frequency ( F 0, perceived as voice pitch) predict mate quality and reproductive success, and affect listeners' social attributions. Although humans can readily and volitionally manipulate their vocal apparatus and resultant voice pitch, for instance, in the production of speech sounds and singing, little is known about whether humans exploit this capacity to adjust the non-verbal dimensions of their voices during social (including sexual) interactions. Here, we recorded full-length conversations of 30 adult men and women taking part in real speed-dating events and tested whether their voice pitch (mean, range and variability) changed with their personal mate choice preferences and the overall desirability of each dating partner. Within-individual analyses indicated that men lowered the minimum pitch of their voices when interacting with women who were overall highly desired by other men. Men also lowered their mean voice pitch on dates with women they selected as potential mates, particularly those who indicated a mutual preference (matches). Interestingly, although women spoke with a higher and more variable voice pitch towards men they selected as potential mates, women lowered both voice pitch parameters towards men who were most desired by other women and whom they also personally preferred. Between-individual analyses indicated that men in turn preferred women with lower-pitched voices, wherein women's minimum voice pitch explained up to 55% of the variance in men's mate preferences. These results, derived in an ecologically valid setting, show that individual- and group-level mate preferences can interact to affect vocal behaviour, and support the hypothesis that human voice modulation functions in non-verbal communication to elicit favourable judgements and behaviours from others, including potential mates.

Download Full-text

Effects of pleasant and unpleasant ambient odors on human voice pitch

Neuroscience Letters ◽

10.1016/s0304-3940(00)01668-2 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 297 (1) ◽

pp. 61-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 44

Author(s):

Jean-Louis Millot ◽

Gérard Brand

Keyword(s):

Voice Pitch ◽

Human Voice

Download Full-text

Individual differences in human voice pitch are preserved from speech to screams, roars and pain cries

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.191642 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 191642 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Katarzyna Pisanski ◽

Jordan Raine ◽

David Reby

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Considerable Variability ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Men And Women ◽

Human Voice ◽

Social Traits ◽

Nonverbal Vocalizations ◽

Acoustic Analyses ◽

Socially Relevant

Fundamental frequency ( F 0, perceived as voice pitch) predicts sex and age, hormonal status, mating success and a range of social traits, and thus functions as an important biosocial marker in modal speech. Yet, the role of F 0 in human nonverbal vocalizations remains unclear, and given considerable variability in F 0 across call types, it is not known whether F 0 cues to vocalizer attributes are shared across speech and nonverbal vocalizations. Here, using a corpus of vocal sounds from 51 men and women, we examined whether individual differences in F 0 are retained across neutral speech, valenced speech and nonverbal vocalizations (screams, roars and pain cries). Acoustic analyses revealed substantial variability in F 0 across vocal types, with mean F 0 increasing as much as 10-fold in screams compared to speech in the same individual. Despite these extreme pitch differences, sexual dimorphism was preserved within call types and, critically, inter-individual differences in F 0 correlated across vocal types ( r = 0.36–0.80) with stronger relationships between vocal types of the same valence (e.g. 38% of the variance in roar F 0 was predicted by aggressive speech F 0). Our results indicate that biologically and socially relevant indexical cues in the human voice are preserved in simulated valenced speech and vocalizations, including vocalizations characterized by extreme F 0 modulation, suggesting that voice pitch may function as a reliable individual and biosocial marker across disparate communication contexts.

Download Full-text

Significance of Intelligent Pause Detection Protocol (IPDP) Over Other Protocols used for Speech Processing

International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering - Special Issue ◽

10.35940/ijitee.l2734.1081219 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (12) ◽

pp. 4332-4336

Keyword(s):

Speech Processing ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Bandwidth Utilization ◽

Standard Methods ◽

Human Voice ◽

Peak Value

Analysis of human voice based on its pitch can be used in detecting the pauses. The available algorithms for pause detection could succeed to some extent and lot of scope for better performance still exists. The proposed intelligent pause detection protocol (IPDP) is the convergence of (i) calculation of Mean/RMS peak value from human voice pitch (ii) estimating the pause using MLE algorithm and (iii) optimizing the bandwidth utilization of Vocoders using DTX algorithm. The work carried projects better pause removal than the existing standard methods.

Download Full-text

A longitudinal study of within-individual variation in human voice pitch

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.4970892 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 140 (4) ◽

pp. 3397-3397

Author(s):

Katarzyna Pisanski ◽

Meddy Fouquet ◽

Nicolas Mathevon ◽

David Reby

Keyword(s):

Longitudinal Study ◽

Individual Variation ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Human Voice

Download Full-text

A sweet voice: The influence of crossmodal correspondences between taste and vocal pitch on advertising effectiveness

10.31234/osf.io/q3gch ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kosuke Motoki ◽

Toshiki Saito ◽

Rui Nouchi ◽

Ryuta Kawashima ◽

Motoaki Sugiura

Keyword(s):

Sensory Information ◽

Food Preferences ◽

Advertising Effectiveness ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Crossmodal Correspondences ◽

Human Voice ◽

Recent Scholarship ◽

Vocal Pitch ◽

Crossmodal Correspondence

Crossmodal correspondences have been increasingly reported in recent scholarship, and pitch–taste associations have been observed. People consistently associate high-pitched vocal tones with sweet/sour foods, while low-pitched tones tend to be associated with bitter foods. The human voice is key in broadcast advertising, and the role of voice in communication generally is partly characterized by acoustic parameters of pitch. However, it remains unknown whether voice pitch and other senses relevant to product attributes (e.g., taste) interactively influence consumer behavior. Since congruent sensory information is desirable, it is plausible that voice pitch and taste interactively guide consumers’ responses to advertising. Based on the crossmodal correspondence phenomenon, this study aimed to elucidate the role played by voice pitch/taste correspondences in advertising effectiveness. Participants listened to voiceover advertisements (at a high or low pitch) for three food products with distinct tastes (sweet, sour, and bitter) and rated their buying intention (an indicator of advertising effectiveness). The results show that the participants were likely to exhibit greater buying intention toward both sweet and sour food when they listened to high-pitched (vs. low-pitched) voiceover advertisements. The effects for sweet food occurred when the vocal pitch was considerably high (Studies 2 and 3), but not when pitch was only moderately high (Study 1). The influence of high pitch on sour food preferences was somewhat inconsistent. These findings emphasize the role that voice pitch/taste correspondence plays in preference formation, and advance the applicability of crossmodal correspondences to business.

Download Full-text

A Sweet Voice: The Influence of Cross-Modal Correspondences Between Taste and Vocal Pitch on Advertising Effectiveness

Multisensory Research ◽

10.1163/22134808-20191365 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 32 (4-5) ◽

pp. 401-427 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Kosuke Motoki ◽

Toshiki Saito ◽

Rui Nouchi ◽

Ryuta Kawashima ◽

Motoaki Sugiura

Keyword(s):

Consumer Behavior ◽

Rapid Growth ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Food Preferences ◽

Advertising Effectiveness ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Acoustic Parameters ◽

Human Voice ◽

Sweet Food

Abstract We have seen a rapid growth of interest in cross-modal correspondences between sound and taste over recent years. People consistently associate higher-pitched sounds with sweet/sour foods, while lower-pitched sounds tend to be associated with bitter foods. The human voice is key in broadcast advertising, and the role of voice in communication generally is partly characterized by acoustic parameters of pitch. However, it remains unknown whether voice pitch and taste interactively influence consumer behavior. Since consumers prefer congruent sensory information, it is plausible that voice pitch and taste interactively influence consumers’ responses to advertising stimuli. Based on the cross-modal correspondence phenomenon, this study aimed to elucidate the role played by voice pitch–taste correspondences in advertising effectiveness. Participants listened to voiceover advertisements (at a higher or lower pitch than the original narrator’s voice) for three food products with distinct tastes (sweet, sour, and bitter) and rated their buying intention (an indicator of advertising effectiveness). The results show that the participants were likely to exhibit greater buying intention toward both sweet and sour food when they listened to higher-pitched (vs lower-pitched) voiceover advertisements. The influence of a higher pitch on sweet and sour food preferences was observed in only two of the three studies: studies 1 and 2 for sour food, and studies 2 and 3 for sweet food. These findings emphasize the role that voice pitch–taste correspondence plays in preference formation, and advance the applicability of cross-modal correspondences to business.

Download Full-text

Voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2007.0410 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 3 (6) ◽

pp. 682-684 ◽

Cited By ~ 162

Author(s):

C.L Apicella ◽

D.R Feinberg ◽

F.W Marlowe

Keyword(s):

Sexual Dimorphism ◽

Reproductive Success ◽

Child Mortality ◽

Birth Control ◽

Selection Pressure ◽

Sexually Dimorphic ◽

Control Methods ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Number Of Children

The validity of evolutionary explanations of vocal sexual dimorphism hinges upon whether or not individuals with more sexually dimorphic voices have higher reproductive success than individuals with less dimorphic voices. However, due to modern birth control methods, these data are rarely described, and mating success is often used as a second-rate proxy. Here, we test whether voice pitch predicts reproductive success, number of children born and child mortality in an evolutionarily relevant population of hunter-gatherers. While we find that voice pitch is not related to reproductive outcomes in women, we find that men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them. However, voice pitch in men does not predict child mortality. These findings suggest that the association between voice pitch and reproductive success in men is mediated by differential access to fecund women. Furthermore, they show that there is currently selection pressure for low-pitch voices in men.

Download Full-text

Low fundamental and formant frequencies predict fighting ability among male mixed martial arts fighters

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-79408-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Toe Aung ◽

Stefan Goetz ◽

John Adams ◽

Clint McKenna ◽

Catherine Hess ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Martial Arts ◽

Size Factor ◽

Social Perceptions ◽

Sexually Dimorphic ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Mixed Martial Arts ◽

Male Voice ◽

Fighting Ability ◽

Acoustic Measures ◽

Human Voice

AbstractHuman 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.

Download Full-text