Changes in salivary estradiol predict changes in women's preferences for vocal masculinity

Abstract

22Although many studies have reported that women's preferences for masculine 23 physical characteristics in men change systematically during the menstrual cycle, the 24 hormonal mechanisms underpinning these changes are currently poorly understood. 25Previous studies investigating the relationships between measured hormone levels and 26women's masculinity preferences tested only judgments of men's facial 27 attractiveness. Results of these studies suggested that preferences for masculine 28 characteristics in men's faces were related to either women's estradiol or testosterone 29 levels. To investigate the hormonal correlates of within-woman variation in 30 masculinity preferences further, here we measured 62 women's salivary estradiol, 31 progesterone, and testosterone levels and their preferences for masculine 32 characteristics in men's voices in five weekly test sessions. Multilevel modeling of 33 these data showed that changes in salivary estradiol were the best predictor of changes 34 in women's preferences for vocal masculinity. These results complement other recent 35 research implicating estradiol in women's mate preferences, attention to courtship 36 signals, sexual motivation, and sexual strategies, and are the first to link women's 37 voice preferences directly to measured hormone levels. 38 39

Are Men’s Perceptions of Sexually Dimorphic Vocal Characteristics Related to Their Testosterone Levels?

“…In contrast to our findings, a recent study found that within-subject changes in estradiol predicted women’s preferences for vocal masculinity in men’s voices [20]. This apparent sex difference in hormonal modulation of voice preferences may potentially reflect overall differences in mating strategies, as women may use more and finer-grained information about potential mates, or may be more sensitive to cues of quality, in order to offset potentially greater costs to their fitness associated with poor partner choice [32].…”

“…Following other recent work on perceptions of sexually dimorphic vocal characteristics (e.g., [20]), we created two feminized and two masculinized versions of each original voice recording by independently manipulating voice pitch or formants using the Pitch-Synchronous Overlap Add (PSOLA) algorithm in Praat version 5.2.15 [21]. Pitch was raised (feminized) or lowered (masculinized) by 10% from baseline while holding formants constant.…”

“…Following these manipulations, we amplitude normalized the sound pressure level of all voices to 70 decibels using the root mean squared method. The male voice stimuli used in the current study have previously been used to investigate hormonal correlates of women’s preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s voices [20]. Voice pitch and formant measures for the feminized and masculinized voice stimuli are given in our supplemental materials (Table A and Table B in S1 Supplementary Materials).…”

“…All testing machines as well as all headphones used in the study were identical. This type of test has been used to assess perceptions of masculinized versus feminized versions of voices in previous work (e.g., [13, 20]). Data are included as S1 Data.…”

A longitudinal analysis of women’s salivary testosterone and intrasexual competitiveness

“…Each participant completed five consecutive weekly test sessions. Data on 45 of these women's voice preferences are reported in Pisanski et al (2014). Data on the reward value of adult facial attractiveness and infant facial cuteness for 39 and 45 of these women are reported in Wang et al (2014) and Hahn et al (2015), respectively.…”