Effects of Four Voice Qualities and Formant Dispersion on Perception of a Female Voice

Abstract

Stimuli produced by a female speaker with four different voice qualities - modal, girlish, breathy and creaky - were manipulated to have more or less formant dispersion and were rated on four scales (dominance, attractiveness, sexiness and youthfulness) by men and women. Stimuli with less formant dispersion were rated more dominant and those with more dispersed formants were rated as less dominant. Breathy voice and girlish voice were rated more attractive and sexy. Stimuli with a creaky voice were rated less attractive and sexy, as were stimuli with less formant dispersion. Girlish voices and those with greater formant dispersion were rated as more youthful; creaky voices and those with less formant dispersion were rated as less youthful. There were also gender differences in ratings of attractiveness and youthfulness. Our results suggest that women’s voice qualities can affect perceptions of their attractiveness, sexiness and youthfulness. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of social signaling.

Vocal modulation in human mating and competition

“…Similarly, formant frequencies are negatively correlated with both body size and perceptions of size and dominance, are lower in men than women [33,35], and hence may also be modulated in contexts where there is a benefit to manipulating apparent size, dominance, or masculinity. Harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) may also be higher in women's than men's voices and influences perceptions of breathiness [36,37], which may, therefore, influence perceptions of femininity, youth and attractiveness [38][39][40] and influence mating opportunities [41].…”

Negative Life Events and Time Perspective Among Adolescents

“…Men and women using low pitched, creaky voices known as vocal fry, are evaluated poorly overall and less hirable than others; the poor evaluations were stronger for female voices (Anderson et al, 2014). Variations in female voice quality based on pitch and formant spacing has been shown to affect adults' percep tion of social traits (Levitt & Lucas, 2016). In other words, characteristics of voice stimuli matter and the children in the current study responded more quickly to the male voice as compared with the female voice most likely due to the differences in the unmeasured lexical qualities of the voice stimuli.…”

High Variability Pronunciation Training (HVPT): Using Different Stimulus Talkers and Sound-To-Symbol Associations in L2 Pronunciation Learning

“…However, many students strongly rely on their instructors as models of language and may receive an imbalance of input types throughout their learning (e.g., more of one type than another). Though this imbalance may seem inconsequential, research confirms that there is indeed a difference in listener perception of male and female talkers (Levitt & Lucas, 2018;Pépiot, 2013;Rodero, et al, 2013;Yiu et al, 2008). If there is a difference in perception, then it may be that sex of talker matters in the learning process.…”