ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2018
Voice pitch modulation in human mate choice.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Large language models can detect verbal indicators of romantic attraction.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Categorization of and Adaptation to Human Voice and Musical Instruments: A Passive Listening EEG Study.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Motivating tones to enhance education: The effects of vocal awareness on teachers' voices.The British journal of educational psychology · 2025Article
- Chemosensory Cues Modulate Women's Jealousy Responses to Vocal Femininity.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Longitudinal Changes in Pitch-Related Acoustic Characteristics of the Voice Throughout the Menstrual Cycle: Observational Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Observational
- Assessing the association between menstrual cycle phase and voice-gender categorization: no robust evidence for an association.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Sharing and Receiving Eye-Contact Predicts Mate Choice After a 5-Minute Conversation: Evidence from a Speed-Dating Study.Archives of sexual behavior · 2024Article
- Sex-related communicative functions of voice spectral energy in human chorusing.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Sequence variants affecting voice pitch in humans.Science advances · 2023Article
- Masking important information to assess the robustness of a multimodal classifier for emotion recognition.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2023Article
- Visual biases in evaluation of speakers' and singers' voice type by cis and trans listeners.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Individual differences in vocal size exaggeration.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Musicality in human vocal communication: an evolutionary perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Vocal Cues to Male Physical Formidability.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Enhancing the Evolutionary Science of Self-Presentation Modification.Archives of sexual behavior · 2022Article
- Static and dynamic formant scaling conveys body size and aggression.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- The Effects of Pitch Manipulation on Male Ratings of Female Speakers and Their Voices.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Darwin's sexual selection hypothesis revisited: Musicality increases sexual attraction in both sexes.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- Vocal modulation in human mating and competition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Inter-individual differences in human fundamental frequency ( F0, perceived as voice pitch) predict mate quality and reproductive success, and affect listeners' social attributions. Although humans can readily and volitionally manipulate their vocal apparatus and resultant voice pitch, for instance, in the production of speech sounds and singing, little is known about whether humans exploit this capacity to adjust the non-verbal dimensions of their voices during social (including sexual) interactions. Here, we recorded full-length conversations of 30 adult men and women taking part in real speed-dating events and tested whether their voice pitch (mean, range and variability) changed with their personal mate choice preferences and the overall desirability of each dating partner. Within-individual analyses indicated that men lowered the minimum pitch of their voices when interacting with women who were overall highly desired by other men. Men also lowered their mean voice pitch on dates with women they selected as potential mates, particularly those who indicated a mutual preference (matches). Interestingly, although women spoke with a higher and more variable voice pitch towards men they selected as potential mates, women lowered both voice pitch parameters towards men who were most desired by other women and whom they also personally preferred. Between-individual analyses indicated that men in turn preferred women with lower-pitched voices, wherein women's minimum voice pitch explained up to 55% of the variance in men's mate preferences. These results, derived in an ecologically valid setting, show that individual- and group-level mate preferences can interact to affect vocal behaviour, and support the hypothesis that human voice modulation functions in non-verbal communication to elicit favourable judgements and behaviours from others, including potential mates.
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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.