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Contextualising courtship: Exploring male body odour effects on vocal modulation

Voice characteristics are important to communicate socially relevant information. Recent research has shown that individuals alter their voices depending on the context of social interactions and perceived characteristics of the audience, and this …

Want to know if your partner’s cheating on you? Just listen to their voice

Picture Morgan Freeman, Donald Trump or Margaret Thatcher. Most likely you can hear their voices in your mind, and the characteristic inflections that they put on certain words, as well as their tone and pitch.

We change our voice when we talk to high-status people, shows new study

Imagine going for a job interview and the employer sitting across from you is truly intimidating. He’s big, bold, loud and mean-looking. What might this do to your confidence? To your mannerisms?

Perceived differences in social status between speaker and listener affect the speaker's vocal characteristics

Non-verbal behaviours, including voice characteristics during speech, are an important way to communicate social status. Research suggests that individuals can obtain high social status through dominance (using force and intimidation) or through …

Contextual musicality: Vocal modulation and its perception in human social interactions

Music and language are both deeply rooted in our biology, but scientists have given far more attention to the neurological, biological and evolutionary roots of language than those of music. Because of this, and probably partially due to this, the …

Vocal modulation during courtship increases proceptivity even in naive listeners

Speakers modulate their voice when talking to infants but we know little about subtle variation in acoustic parameters during normal adult speech, and investigation is impeded by listeners’ understanding of semantic content. Here we circumvent this …