Tennis grunts communicate acoustic cues to sex and contest outcome

Raine, Jordan; Pisanski, Katarzyna; Reby, David

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.06.022

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…This established method has been applied successfully in a number of studies to measure F0 both in human speech and nonverbal vocalizations characterized by extreme F0 values (e.g. babies cries [32], tennis grunts [15]). Measured F0 was converted from hertz (Hz) to equivalent rectangular bandwidths (ERBs), a quasi-logarithmic scale that controls for any discrepancy between measured F0 and perceived voice pitch.…”

Section: Acoustic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2020

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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.

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Section: Acoustic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such distress vocalizations also exhibit different spectral profiles than those of agonistic or aggressive vocalizations (roars, grunts), which are typically characterized by a relatively low F0 and a high proportion of nonlinear phenomena (e.g. [15,16]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2020

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“…Due to an evolutionary continuity in both structure and function between the vocalizations of other mammals and human nonverbal vocalizations, such as laughter [18–21] and infant distress screams [22–24], human nonverbal vocalizations may communicate evolutionarily and socially relevant information more effectively than speech, which is also relatively more constrained by linguistic content. Indeed, recent work has shown that human laughter (e.g., [25,21,26] but see [27]), tennis grunts [28], and simulated pain cries [29] all convey ecologically relevant cues to vocalizer traits that listeners utilize in their biosocial judgments. At the same time, while past studies show that listeners can estimate absolute strength from modal speech [11] and relative strength from both speech and roars [12], roars appear to exaggerate the expression of threat, as listeners judge male vocalizers as relatively stronger and larger than themselves when those vocalizers are producing roars compared to aggressive speech [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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“…By contrast, strong individual differences characterize the pitch of adults' voices, leading to distinct F 0 distributions in men's and women's speech (men's modal F 0 typically ranges between 80 and 175 Hz and women's between 160 and 270 Hz [2]) and in their non-verbal vocalizations (e.g. tennis grunts: men 230-400 Hz, women 370 -910 [3]). Among pre-pubertal children, in the absence of sex differences, F 0 distributions largely overlap and are characterized by wide ranges in both pre-verbal cries (F 0 ranges 350-550 Hz in the cries of 3-month-old babies [1]) and children's speech (215 to 320 Hz in 5-to 7-year-olds' speech [4]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The pitch of babies’ cries predicts their voice pitch at age 5

et al. 2018

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Voice pitch (fundamental frequency, ) is a key dimension of our voice that varies between sexes after puberty, and also among individuals of the same sex both before and after puberty. While a recent longitudinal study indicates that inter-individual differences in voice pitch remain stable in men during adulthood and may even be determined before puberty (Fouquet 2016 , 160395. (doi:10.1098/rsos.160395)), whether these differences emerge in infancy remains unknown. Here, using a longitudinal study design, we investigate the hypothesis that inter-individual differences in are already present in the cries of pre-verbal babies. While based on a small sample ( = 15), our results indicate that the of babies' cries at 4 months of age may predict the of their speech utterances at 5 years of age, explaining 41% of the inter-individual variance in voice pitch at that age in our sample. We also found that the right-hand ratio of the length of their index to ring finger (2D : 4D digit ratio), which has been proposed to constitute an index of prenatal testosterone exposure, was positively correlated with at both 4 months and 5 years of age. These findings suggest that a substantial proportion of between-individual differences in voice pitch, which convey important biosocial information about speakers, may partly originate and thus already be present soon after birth.

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Tennis grunts communicate acoustic cues to sex and contest outcome

Cited by 19 publications

References 60 publications

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

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

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

The pitch of babies’ cries predicts their voice pitch at age 5

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