You Sound a Little Too Atypical For Me – Measuring The Artificial Lowering And Raising of Voice Pitch In Men And Women
Jenny Galvao
Based on research conducted by Paul Fraccaro of McMaster University and associates, it was found that men and women are able to adjust their perceived vocal attractiveness to strangers by manipulating their voice pitch.
Previous research has found that women prefer men with naturally deep voices, and men prefer women with naturally high voices.
That said, what happens when a man purposely lowers his pitch, and when a woman purposely raises hers?
In this experiment, the voices of four women and four men were recorded as they pronounced five vowel sounds. First they spoke naturally/habitually. They then raised their voice pitch followed by a lowered pitch.
Participants were then asked to listen to all 24 recordings which were grouped into pairs. The habitual voice was coupled with the altered voice pitch permitting the subjects to compare the two voices against one another. Participants were permitted to replay the recordings. The subjects then rated which voice was the most attractive as well as how dominant they felt the recordings to be.
The results showed that the women preferred the natural pitch of the women’s voices in both instances (lowered or raised). Women also preferred the natural pitch of men’s voices compared to the raised, but not when compared to the lowered pitch. The male raters preferred the women’s habitual pitch compared with the lowered pitch, but not compared to the raised pitch. Male raters also preferred the natural men’s pitch versus the raised pitch, but not compared to the lowered pitch.
Lowered pitch voices also tended to be rated higher for dominance.
“We found no evidence that deliberately altering voice pitch increases speakers’ vocal attractiveness to the opposite sex, although we did find that deliberate, sex-atypical alteration of pitch can decrease speakers’ vocal attractiveness,” say the researchers.
The results highlight that exaggerations of the voice in an atypical fashion leads to negative ratings in the opposite sex.
That said, the researchers did find that altering the voice to be deeper did improve perceptions of dominance even if they did nothing to improve perceptions of attractiveness in men.
This, say the researchers “may function to aid perceivers in avoiding the costs associated with misjudging the dominance of potentially threatening individuals.”
In other words, we respect deep voices, even if we don’t feel that they are more attractive.
Overall, these results show us the lack of enticement an atypical voice pitch provides, and how conditioned we are to prefer what is typical of our gender roles (men prefer high pitched voices in women and women prefer low pitched voices in men).
Since attractiveness scores were not easily manipulated by voice alterations, the results suggest that voice pitch is an honest, reliable cue to attractiveness, therefore alterations should not impact the perceived vocal attractiveness largely.
At the end of the day, attractiveness (even vocally) comes down to mate selection, and the search for a partner who will bring reproductive success. In this search, women are trying to find men high in dominance and this is relayed via deep, masculine voices. Men, on the other hand, are on the hunt for women with feminine traits which are cued through higher pitched, feminine voices.
Even though men and women can not fake voice pitch to boost attractiveness, they are able to alter percepts of dominance which may in turn lead to elicit greater feelings of respect.
About the Author: Jenny Galvao is an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph studying psychology.
Resources
Fraccaro, Paul J.; Jillian J. M. O’Connor; Daniel E. Re; Benedict C. Jones; Lisa M. DeBruine and David R. Feinberg. Faking it: Deliberately Altered Voice Pitch and Vocal Attractiveness. Animal Behaviour. 2019. 85: 127e136. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.10.016.