Trial reportPloS one2012
Voice and handgrip strength predict reproductive success in a group of indigenous African females.
Trial report in PloS one, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis of the association between male dimorphism and fitness outcomes in humans.eLife · 2022Pooled it
- Testosterone mediates life-history trade-offs in female mammals.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Chemosensory Cues Modulate Women's Jealousy Responses to Vocal Femininity.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- A systematic review of the association between women's morphological traits and fertility.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Voice-based judgments of sex, height, weight, attractiveness, health, and psychological traits based on free speech versus scripted speech.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Article
- Comparing accuracy in voice-based assessments of biological speaker traits across speech types.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Voice pitch is negatively associated with sociosexual behavior in males but not in females.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Vocal communication across cultures: theoretical and methodological issues.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Hearing the physical condition: The relationship between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and underlying physiology.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Vocal Cues to Male Physical Formidability.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- Predicting strength from aggressive vocalizations versus speech in African bushland and urban communities.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Linking human male vocal parameters to perceptions, body morphology, strength and hormonal profiles in contexts of sexual selection.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Approach to Resource Management and Physical Strength Predict Differences in Helping: Evidence From Two Small-Scale Societies.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Assessment of physical strength from gait: data from the Maasai of Tanzania.Biology letters · 2019Article
- Handgrip Strength as a Darwinian Fitness Indicator in Men.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Review
- Infertility etiologies are genetically and clinically linked with other diseases in single meta-diseases.Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · 2015Review
- Mares prefer the voices of highly fertile stallions.PloS one · 2015Article
- Do orgasms give women feedback about mate choice?Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior · 2014Article
- Vocal Characteristics Influence Women's Perceptions of Infidelity and Relationship Investment in China.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Evolutionary accounts of human traits are often based on proxies for genetic fitness (e.g., number of sex partners, facial attractiveness). Instead of using proxies, actual differences in reproductive success is a more direct measure of darwinian fitness. Certain voice acoustics such as fundamental frequency and measures of health such as handgrip strength correlate with proxies of fitness, yet there are few studies showing the relation of these traits to reproduction. Here, we explore whether the fundamental frequency of the voice and handgrip strength account for differences in actual reproduction among a population of natural fertility humans. Our results show that both fundamental frequency and handgrip strength predict several measures of reproductive success among a group of indigenous Namibian females, particularly amongst the elderly, with weight also predicting reproductive outcomes among males. These findings demonstrate that both hormonally regulated and phenotypic quality markers can be used as measures of darwinian fitness among humans living under conditions that resemble the evolutionary environment of Homo sapiens. We also argue that these findings provide support for the Grandmother Hypothesis.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.