The siren song of vocal fundamental frequency for romantic relationships

Weusthoff, Sarah; Baucom, Brian R.; Hahlweg, Kurt

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00439

Cited by 19 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(105 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, it is unclear why F 0 should signal formidability to same-sex competitors or mate value to potential mates; F 0 is only weakly associated with body size [5,7,[18][19][20] and perhaps strength [5,21] in humans, although F 0 may be modulated according to relative formidability [22] and mate quality [23,24]. Steroid hormones may provide a link between F 0 and condition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual selection on male vocal fundamental frequency in humans and other anthropoids

et al. 2016

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In many primates, including humans, the vocalizations of males and females differ dramatically, with male vocalizations and vocal anatomy often seeming to exaggerate apparent body size. These traits may be favoured by sexual selection because low-frequency male vocalizations intimidate rivals and/or attract females, but this hypothesis has not been systematically tested across primates, nor is it clear why competitors and potential mates should attend to vocalization frequencies. Here we show across anthropoids that sexual dimorphism in fundamental frequency (F 0 ) increased during evolutionary transitions towards polygyny, and decreased during transitions towards monogamy. Surprisingly, humans exhibit greater F 0 sexual dimorphism than any other ape. We also show that low-F 0 vocalizations predict perceptions of men's dominance and attractiveness, and predict hormone profiles (low cortisol and high testosterone) related to immune function. These results suggest that low male F 0 signals condition to competitors and mates, and evolved in male anthropoids in response to the intensity of mating competition.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual selection on male vocal fundamental frequency in humans and other anthropoids

et al. 2016

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“…One possible explanation is that vocal dominance depends on other factors that are not discretely organized around puberty and/or remain flexible in adulthood. For example, acoustic parameters such as fundamental frequency may be modified situationally in relation to relative dominance (Puts et al 2006) or courtship (Leongómez et al 2014;Weusthoff et al 2013). Moreover, the cost of reorganizing soft vocal tissue (e.g., vocal fold thickness) may be lower than the cost of reorganizing other competitive traits such as facial skeletal tissue, and thus vocal tissue may not experience a strong decline in sensitivity to androgens around puberty.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual Selection and Life History: Earlier Recalled Puberty Predicts Men’s Phenotypic Masculinization

Doll

Cárdenas

Burriss

et al. 2015

Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology

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In some laboratory rodents, males' brains and behavior become less sensitive to the organizing effects of androgens across the time window surrounding puberty. Later puberty in human males has also been associated with less male-typical psychology and behavior, such as lower performance on mental rotation tasks and lower risk of substance abuse and delinquency. Here, we propose that life history (LH) theory provides a useful theoretical framework for understanding such relationships between pubertal timing and phenotypic masculinization. Because a faster male LH strategy emphasizes mating over parenting, earlier puberty may lead more generally to greater masculinization of traits that increase in sexual dimorphism at puberty and function in mating competition. In other words, we suggest that decreasing sensitivity to androgens represents a proximate mechanism that facilitates the development of mating-related adaptations in men with fast LH strategies. We tested this hypothesis in 153 men. Consistent with our hypothesis, earlier recalled pubertal timing predicted greater adult male body mass index, facial dominance, biceps circumference, and, to a lesser degree, systemizing and mental rotation ability. Some sexually dimorphic traits that were unrelated to pubertal timing in our data may have been less relevant to our male ancestors' mating success and hence to a fast LH strategy.

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“…Audio recordings were coded so speech was only processed when the target was speaking (mean = 45 s, range 35-60 s). Consistent with other social relationship research on fundamental frequency (e.g., Weusthoff et al 2013), we set the bandpass filter to 75-350 Hz, which captures the normal range of human speech. Mean f 0 was calculated for every quarter second and averaged across the length of time when the target was speaking for each of the three sets of TSST clips.…”

Section: Observable Indices Of Targets' Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite this, our results emphasize the importance of voice in communicating the physiological aspects of affective experience. The frequency window we selected to analyze the vocal data maps onto the typical range of human communication (Weusthoff et al 2013), however, it should also be noted that higher frequencies also carry emotional information. Expanding the range of frequencies may have important insights in future studies of emotion perception.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Physiology and Voice in Emotion Perception During Social Stress

et al. 2019

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Deciphering others' affect is ubiquitous in daily life and is important for navigating social interactions and relationships. Research has found that behavioral components, such as facial expressions or body language, are critical channels by which people understand other people's affect. In the current research, we examined how people's perceptions of targets' positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) are associated with targets' physiological reactivity, and whether behavioral indices mediate these associations. A total of 94 participants (i.e., observers) watched videos of targets completing a social stress task during which targets' physiological reactivity [i.e., changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), cardiac output (CO), and ventricular contractility (VC)] was assessed. We predicted (1) targets' RSA reactivity would be negatively associated with observers' perceptions of PA and NA (to a lesser magnitude than PA); (2) targets' CO reactivity would be positively associated with observers' perceptions of PA and unrelated to perceptions of NA; and (3) targets' VC would be positively associated perceptions of PA or NA (VC was an exploratory hypothesis). Our hypotheses were largely supported. Mediational analyses revealed that vocal prosody was a significant mediator of the association between perceptions of targets' affect and their physiological reactivity. The findings suggest that observers can reliably detect targets' emotional experiences as they manifest at a physiological level and that voice is an especially useful marker of how people perceive others' affective experience. The findings have implications for aspects of relationships involving emotion perception, including affect contagion and interpersonal emotion regulation.

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The siren song of vocal fundamental frequency for romantic relationships

Cited by 19 publications

References 69 publications

Sexual selection on male vocal fundamental frequency in humans and other anthropoids

Sexual selection on male vocal fundamental frequency in humans and other anthropoids

Sexual Selection and Life History: Earlier Recalled Puberty Predicts Men’s Phenotypic Masculinization

The Role of Physiology and Voice in Emotion Perception During Social Stress

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