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Vocal Cues to Male Physical Formidability.
Alvaro Mailhos1,2, Damián Amaro Egea-Caparrós3, Cristina Guerrero Rodríguez4,5
1Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Frontiers in Psychology
|July 22, 2022
Summary
Male voices have acoustic attributes linked to physical strength, like vocal tract length and fundamental frequency. However, women could not accurately perceive male physical strength or attractiveness from voice alone.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Human bioacoustics
- Sexual selection
Background:
- Animal vocalizations signal key traits like sex, age, and physical condition.
- Darwin proposed sexual selection drives sex differences in vocalizations.
- Human studies on voice and male physical formidability yield inconsistent results.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify acoustic voice attributes associated with male physical formidability proxies.
- To assess if human male voices advertise physical formidability to potential mates.
Main Methods:
- Analyzed acoustic attributes (mean fundamental frequency, formant dispersion, formant position, vocal tract length) from 101 male voices.
- Correlated acoustic data with physical proxies: height, weight, and maximal handgrip strength (HGS).
- Assessed female perception of male physical strength and attractiveness from voice samples.
Main Results:
- Vocal tract length positively correlated with HGS, height, and weight.
- Mean fundamental frequency negatively correlated with HGS, even after controlling for height and weight.
- Female listeners could not significantly associate voice acoustics with actual physical strength or attractiveness.
Conclusions:
- Specific acoustic features of male voices correlate with physical formidability proxies.
- Voice alone does not reliably advertise male physical strength or attractiveness to women.
- Contributes to understanding the role of human voice in conveying biological information.
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