Although humans can raise and lower their voice pitch, it is not known whether such alterations can function to increase the likelihood of attracting preferred mates. Because men find higher-pitched women's voices more attractive, the voice pitch with which women speak to men may depend on the strength of their attraction to those men. Here, we measured voice pitch when women left voicemail messages for masculinized and feminized versions of a prototypical male face. We found that the difference in women's voice pitch between these two conditions positively correlated with the strength of their preference for masculinized versus feminized male faces, whereby women tended to speak with a higher voice pitch to the type of face they found more attractive (masculine or feminine). Speaking with a higher voice pitch when talking to the type of man they find most attractive may function to reduce the amount of mating effort that women expend in order to attract and retain preferred mates.
J. Abitbol P. Abitbol B. Abitbol 1999 Sex hormones and the female voice Journal of Voice 13 424 446.
AMIR 2002 The effect of oral contraceptives on voice: Preliminary observations Journal of Voice 16 267 273.
C. Apicella D. R. Feinberg 2009 Voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers Biology Letters 3 682 684.
Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2009): Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.1.05) [Computer program]. http://www.praat.org/.
G. A. Bryant M. G. Haselton 2009 Vocal cues of ovulation in human females Biology Letters 5 12 15.
G. Buckingham L. M. Debruine A. C. Little L. L. M. Welling C. A. Conway B. P. Tiddeman B. C. Jones 2006 Visual adaptation to masculine and feminine faces influence generalized preferences and perceptions of trustworthiness Evolution and Human Behavior 27 381 389.
A. J. Calder J. D. Beaver J. S. Winston R. J. Dolan R. Jenkins E. Eger R. N. A. Henson 2007 Separate coding of different gaze directions in the superior temporal sulcus and inferior parietal lobule Current Biology 17 20 25.
S. A. Collins C. Missing 2003 Vocal and visual attractiveness are related in women Animal Behaviour 65 997 1004.
C. A. Conway B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine A. C. Little 2008 Evidence for adaptive design in human gaze preference Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 275 63 69.
L. M. DeBruine B. C. Jones A. C. Little L. G. Boothroyd D. I. Perrett I. S. Pentonvoak P. A. Cooper L. Penke D. R. Feinberg B. P. Tiddeman 2006 Correlated preferences for facial masculinity and ideal or actual partner's masculinity Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 273 1355 1360.
L. M. Debruine B. C. Jones F. G. Smith A. C. Little 2010 Are attractive men's faces masculine or feminine? The importance of controlling confounds in face stimuli Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 36 751 758.
D. R. Feinberg 2008 Are human faces and voices ornaments signaling common underlying cues to mate value? Evolutionary Anthropology 17 112 118.
D. R. Feinberg L. M. Debruine B. C. Jones D. I. Perrett 2008 The role of femininity and averageness of voice pitch in aesthetic judgements of women's voices Perception 37 615 623.
D. R. Feinberg L. M. Debruine B. C. Jones A. C. Little 2008 Correlated preferences for men's facial and vocal masculinity Evolution and Human Behavior 29 233 241.
Feinberg, D. R., Jones, B. C., Debruine, L. M., Law Smith, M. J., Corrnwell, R. E., Hillier, S. G., Urquhart, M. & Perrett, D. I. (2006, June): Maintenance of vocal sexual dimorphism: Adaptive selection against androgeny, Presentation at the 18th Annual Human Behavior and Evolution Society Conference, University of Pennsylvania.
D. R. Feinberg B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine F. R. Moore M. J. Law Smith R. E. Cornwell B. P. Tiddeman L. G. Boothroyd D. I. Perrett 2005 The voice and face of woman: One ornament that signals quality? Evolution and Human Behavior 26 398 408.
A. Fernald T. Simon 1984 Expanded intonation contours in mothers’ speech to newborns Developmental Psychology 20 104 113.
K. Grammer M. Honda A. Juette A. Schmitt 1999 Fuzziness of nonverbal courtship communication unblurred by motion energy detection Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 487 508.
S. W. Gregory 1996 A nonverbal signal in voices of interview partners effectively predicts communication accommodation and social status perceptions Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 1231 1240.
D. L. Grieser P. K. Kuhl 1988 Maternal speech in infants in a tonal language: Support for universal prosodic features in motherese Developmental Psychology 24 14 20.
S. M. Hughes F. Dispenza G. G. Gallup Jr. 2004 Ratings of voice attractiveness predict sexual behavior and body configuration Evolution and Human Behavior 25 295 304.
S. M. Hughes M. A. Harrison G. G. Gallup Jr. 2002 The sound of symmetry: Voice as a marker of developmental instability Evolution and Human Behavior 23 173 180.
S. M. Hughes S. D. Farley B. C. Rhodes 2010 Vocal and physiological changes in response to the physical attractiveness of conversational partners Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 34 155 167.
V. S. Johnston R. Hagel M. Franklin B. Fink K. Grammer 2001 Male facial attractiveness: Evidence for a hormone-mediated adaptive design Evolution and Human Behavior 22 251 267.
B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine A. C. Little C. A. Conway L. L. Welling F. G. Smith et al.2007 Sensation seeking and men's face preferences Evolution and Human Behavior 28 439 446.
B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine J. C. Main A. C. Little L. L. M. Welling D. R. Feinberg B. P. Tiddeman 2010 Facial cues of dominance modulate the short-term gaze-cuing effect in human observers Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 277 617 624.
B. C. Jones D. R. Feinberg L. M. Debruine A. C. Little J. Vukovic 2010 A domain-specific opposite-sex bias in human preferences for manipulated voice pitch Animal Behaviour 79 57 62.
B. C. Jones D. R. Feinberg L. M. Debruine A. C. Little J. Vukovic 2008 Integrating cues of social interest and voice pitch in men's preferences for women's voices Biology Letters 4 192 194.
B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine D. I. Perrett A. C. Little D. R. Feinberg M. J. Law Smith et al.2008 Effects of menstrual cycle on face preferences Archives of Sexual Behavior 37 78 84.
B. C. Jones D. I. Perrett A. C. Little L. G. Boothroyd R. E. Cornwell D. R. Feinberg et al.2005 Menstrual cycle, pregnancy and oral contraceptive use alter attraction to apparent health in faces Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 272 347 354.
H. H. López A. C. Hay P. H. Conklin 2009 Attractive men induce testosterone and cortisol release in women Hormones and Behavior 56 84 92.
A. C. Little B. C. Jones I. S. Penton-Voak D. M. Burt D. I. Perrett 2002 Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 269 1095 1103.
A. C. Little D. M. Burt I. S. Penton-Voak D. I. Perrett 2001 Self-perceived attractiveness influences human female preferences for sexual dimorphism and symmetry in male faces Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 268 39 44.
I. S. Penton-Voak A. C. Little B. C. Jones D. M. Burt B. P. Tiddeman D. I. Perrett 2003 Female condition influences preferences for sexual dimorphism in faces of male humans (Homo sapiens) Journal of Comparative Psychology 117 264 271.
I. S. Penton-voak D. I. Perrett D. L. Castles T. Kobayashi D. M. Burt L. K. Murray R. Minamisawa 1999 Menstrual cycle alters face preference Nature 399 741 742.
D. I. Perrett K. Lee I. S. Penton-Voak D. A. Rowland S. Yoshikawa D. M. Burt et al.1998 Effects of sexual Pipitone, R. N. & Gallup Jr., G. G. (2008): Women's voice attractiveness varies across the menstrual cycle Evolution and Human Behavior 29 268 274.
D. A. Puts 2006 Cyclic variation in women's preferences for masculine traits — Potential hormonal causes Human Nature 17 114 127.
D. A. Puts S. J. C. Gaulin K. Verdolini 2006 Dominance and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice pitch Evolution and Human Behavior 27 283 296.
G. Rhodes 2006 The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty Annual Review of Psychology 57 199 226.
S. C. Roberts L. M. Gosling V. Carter M. Petrie 2008 MHC-correlated odour preferences in humans and the use of oral contraceptives Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 275 2715 2722.
D. A. Rowland D. I. Perrett 1995 Manipulating facial appearance through shape and color IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 15 70 76.
F. G. Smith B. C. Jones L. L. Welling A. C. Little J. Vukovic J. C. Main L. M. Debruine 2009 Waist-hip ratio, but not BMI, influences women's preferences for masculine male faces Personality and Individual Differences 47 476 480.
K. N. Stevens 1998 Acoustic Phonetics MIT Pres Cambridge, MA.
B. P. Tiddeman D. M. Burt D. I. Perrett 2001 Prototyping and transforming facial textures for perception research IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 21 5 42 50.
I. R. Titze 1994 Principles of Voice Production Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
J. Vukovic B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine D. R. Feinberg F. G. Smith A. C. Little L. L. M. Welling J. C. Main 2010 Women's own voice pitch predicts their preferences for masculinity in men's voices Behavioral Ecology 21 767 772.
J. Vukovic D. R. Feinberg B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine L. L. Welling A. C. Little F. G. Smith 2008 Self-rated attractiveness predicts individual differences in women's preferences for masculine men's voices Personality and Individual Differences 45 451 456.
L. L. M. Welling B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine A. C. Little F. G. Smith 2008 Exposure to sexually attractive men decreases women's preferences for feminine faces Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 6 219 230.
L. L. M. Welling B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine 2008 Sex drive is positively associated with women's preferences for sexual dimorphism in men's and women's faces Personality and Individual Differences 44 161 170.
L. L. M. Welling B. C. Jones L. M. Debruine C. A. Conway M. J. Law Smith A. C. Little D. R. Feinberg M. Sharp E. A. S. Al-Dujaili 2007 Raised salivary testosterone in women is associated with increased attraction to masculine faces Hormones and Behavior 52 156 161.