Supplemental Material for Return to Oz: Voice Pitch Facilitates Assessments of Men’s Body Size

A house of cards: bias in perception of body size mediates the relationship between voice pitch and perceptions of dominance

Animal Behaviour ◽

10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.11.005 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 147 ◽

pp. 43-51 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

M.M. Armstrong ◽

A.J. Lee ◽

D.R. Feinberg

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

House Of Cards ◽

The Relationship

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Voice pitch illusion and perception of speaker's body size: Relationship with the spectral tilt in speech sound

Acoustical Science and Technology ◽

10.1250/ast.43.73 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 73-76

Author(s):

Teruhisa Uchida

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Speech Sound ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Size Relationship ◽

Spectral Tilt

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Harsh is large: nonlinear vocal phenomena lower voice pitch and exaggerate body size

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2021.0872 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 288 (1954) ◽

pp. 20210872

Author(s):

Andrey Anikin ◽

Katarzyna Pisanski ◽

Mathilde Massenet ◽

David Reby

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Amplitude Modulation ◽

Acoustic Signal ◽

Implicit Associations ◽

Rating Task ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

Voice Production ◽

Nonverbal Vocalizations ◽

Implicit Associations Test

A lion's roar, a dog's bark, an angry yell in a pub brawl: what do these vocalizations have in common? They all sound harsh due to nonlinear vocal phenomena (NLP)—deviations from regular voice production, hypothesized to lower perceived voice pitch and thereby exaggerate the apparent body size of the vocalizer. To test this yet uncorroborated hypothesis, we synthesized human nonverbal vocalizations, such as roars, groans and screams, with and without NLP (amplitude modulation, subharmonics and chaos). We then measured their effects on nearly 700 listeners' perceptions of three psychoacoustic (pitch, timbre, roughness) and three ecological (body size, formidability, aggression) characteristics. In an explicit rating task, all NLP lowered perceived voice pitch, increased voice darkness and roughness, and caused vocalizers to sound larger, more formidable and more aggressive. Key results were replicated in an implicit associations test, suggesting that the ‘harsh is large’ bias will arise in ecologically relevant confrontational contexts that involve a rapid, and largely implicit, evaluation of the opponent's size. In sum, nonlinearities in human vocalizations can flexibly communicate both formidability and intention to attack, suggesting they are not a mere byproduct of loud vocalizing, but rather an informative acoustic signal well suited for intimidating potential opponents.

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Rethinking the frequency code: a meta-analytic review of the role of acoustic body size in communicative phenomena

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2020.0400 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 376 (1840) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bodo Winter ◽

Grace Eunhae Oh ◽

Iris Hübscher ◽

Kaori Idemaru ◽

Lucien Brown ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Sound Symbolism ◽

Voice Pitch ◽

High Pitch ◽

Diverse Range ◽

Frequency Code ◽

Analytic Review ◽

Polite Speech

The widely cited frequency code hypothesis attempts to explain a diverse range of communicative phenomena through the acoustic projection of body size. The set of phenomena includes size sound symbolism (using /i/ to signal smallness in words such as teeny ), intonational phonology (using rising contours to signal questions) and the indexing of social relations via vocal modulation, such as lowering one's voice pitch to signal dominance. Among other things, the frequency code is commonly interpreted to suggest that polite speech should be universally signalled via high pitch owing to the association of high pitch with small size and submissiveness. We present a cross-cultural meta-analysis of polite speech of 101 speakers from seven different languages. While we find evidence for cross-cultural variation, voice pitch is on average lower when speakers speak politely, contrary to what the frequency code predicts. We interpret our findings in the light of the fact that pitch has a multiplicity of possible communicative meanings. Cultural and contextual variation determines which specific meanings become manifest in a specific interactional context. We use the evidence from our meta-analysis to propose an updated view of the frequency code hypothesis that is based on the existence of many-to-many mappings between speech acoustics and communicative interpretations. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)’.

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