No clear evidence for correlations between handgrip strength and sexually dimorphic acoustic properties of voices

Han, Chengyang; Wang, Hongyi; Fasolt, Vanessa; Hahn, Amanda; Holzleitner, Iris J; Lao, Junpeng; DeBruine, Lisa; Feinberg, David R.; Jones, Benedict C.

doi:10.1002/ajhb.23178

Cited by 15 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Accordingly, aggressive stimuli exaggerated impressions of strength and body size relative to distress stimuli. Corroborating previous attempts [11,15,16], our acoustic analyses did not identify vocal features that reliably mediated the communication of strength, yet listeners could nevertheless accurately estimate strength from male and female aggressive (but not distress) vocal stimuli, and most reliably from aggressive roars. To a lesser degree, listeners could also estimate the height of vocalizers.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 44%

“…While the present study utilized an amalgamated strength measure based on flexed bicep circumference, handgrip strength, and chest strength (following [11]), some other studies examining vocal correlates of strength have utilized amalgamated scores based on fewer measures (e.g., flexed bicep circumference and handgrip strength only [12,15]), or have examined strength measures individually (e.g., biceps only, handgrip strength only [14,16]). Nevertheless, different measures of upper-body strength covary within and between individuals and, given that these previous studies likewise did not report consistent or robust acoustic correlates of strength, differences in how strength was computed across these few studies are not likely to explain such null results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…or distress (‘Please, show mercy, don’t hurt me! ), as previous studies have failed to find acoustic correlates of actual or perceived strength in emotionally neutral speech [11,16]. Nevertheless, a third speech condition, in which participants produce the same linguistic content while imagining themselves in each of the aggressive and distress situations, may reduce the ecological validity of the task but could in turn help to disentangle the influence of linguistic content and emotional valence on listeners’ ratings of speech stimuli.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human roars communicate upper-body strength more effectively than do screams or aggressive and distressed speech

et al. 2019

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Despite widespread evidence that nonverbal components of human speech (e.g., voice pitch) communicate information about physical attributes of vocalizers and that listeners can judge traits such as strength and body size from speech, few studies have examined the communicative functions of human nonverbal vocalizations (such as roars, screams, grunts and laughs). Critically, no previous study has yet to examine the acoustic correlates of strength in nonverbal vocalisations, including roars, nor identified reliable vocal cues to strength in human speech. In addition to being less acoustically constrained than articulated speech, agonistic nonverbal vocalizations function primarily to express motivation and emotion, such as threat, and may therefore communicate strength and body size more effectively than speech. Here, we investigated acoustic cues to strength and size in roars compared to screams and speech sentences produced in both aggressive and distress contexts. Using playback experiments, we then tested whether listeners can reliably infer a vocalizer’s actual strength and height from roars, screams, and valenced speech equivalents, and which acoustic features predicted listeners’ judgments. While there were no consistent acoustic cues to strength in any vocal stimuli, listeners accurately judged inter-individual differences in strength, and did so most effectively from aggressive voice stimuli (roars and aggressive speech). In addition, listeners more accurately judged strength from roars than from aggressive speech. In contrast, listeners’ judgments of height were most accurate for speech stimuli. These results support the prediction that vocalizers maximize impressions of physical strength in aggressive compared to distress contexts, and that inter-individual variation in strength may only be honestly communicated in vocalizations that function to communicate threat, particularly roars. Thus, in continuity with nonhuman mammals, the acoustic structure of human aggressive roars may have been selected to communicate, and to some extent exaggerate, functional cues to physical formidability.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 44%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human roars communicate upper-body strength more effectively than do screams or aggressive and distressed speech

et al. 2019

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“…Lastly, HNR was negatively correlated with jitter (r ¼ À.57, p < .001). All these correlations are consistent with those reported in the literature (for F0 and F0-SD, see Hodges-Simeon et al, 2010; for Df and Pf, see the open data of Han et al, 2018; and for jitter and HNR, see de Krom, 1993), except the correlation between Df and HNR, which to our knowledge was not reported elsewhere.…”

Section: Acoustic Analysessupporting

confidence: 92%

Male Vocal Quality and Its Relation to Females’ Preferences

2019

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In both correlational and experimental settings, studies on women’s vocal preferences have reported negative relationships between perceived attractiveness and men’s vocal pitch, emphasizing the idea of an adaptive preference. However, such consensus on vocal attractiveness has been mostly conducted with native English speakers, but a few evidence suggest that it may be culture-dependent. Moreover, other overlooked acoustic components of vocal quality, such as intonation, perceived breathiness and roughness, may influence vocal attractiveness. In this context, the present study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating vocal attractiveness in an underrepresented language (i.e., French) as well as shedding light on its relationship with understudied acoustic components of vocal quality. More specifically, we investigated the relationships between attractiveness ratings as assessed by female raters and male voice pitch, its variation, the formants’ dispersion and position, and the harmonics-to-noise and jitter ratios. Results show that women were significantly more attracted to lower vocal pitch and higher intonation patterns. However, they did not show any directional preferences for all the other acoustic features. We discuss our results in light of the adaptive functions of vocal preferences in a mate choice context.

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“…Participants' handgrip strength was measured from their dominant hand three times using a T. K. K. 5001 Grip A dynamometer. Following Fink et al (2007) and Han et al (2018), the highest recording from each participant will be used in analyses. These body measures were taken when the images were obtained.…”

Section: Body Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do?

Holzleitner¹,

Jones²,

Shiramizu³

et al. 2019

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A large literature exists investigating the extent to which physical characteristics (e.g., strength, weight, and height) can be accurately assessed from face images. While most of these studies have employed two dimensional (2D) face images as stimuli, some recent studies have used three dimensional (3D) face images because they may contain cues not visible in 2D face images. We know of no direct empirical tests of this claim and the equipment required for 3D face images is considerably more expensive than that required for 2D face images. Consequently, we will test whether 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do by directly comparing the accuracy of strength, weight, and height ratings of 2D and 3D face images taken simultaneously.

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No clear evidence for correlations between handgrip strength and sexually dimorphic acoustic properties of voices

Cited by 15 publications

References 21 publications

Human roars communicate upper-body strength more effectively than do screams or aggressive and distressed speech

Human roars communicate upper-body strength more effectively than do screams or aggressive and distressed speech

Male Vocal Quality and Its Relation to Females’ Preferences

Do 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do?

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