10 Ways Your Voice Influences Other Minds
Deep male voices boost memory, familiar voices are easy to
hear or block
It’s not just what you say, it’s the way that you say it.
The sound of our voices, including its pitch, accent and
inflection, has all sorts of subtle effects on how we are perceived by other
people.
Here are ten ways in which the sound of your voice
influences other people’s minds.
1.
Familiar voices jump out
Familiar voices seem to jump out of the background hubbub
automatically at us.
Participants in a recent study listened to their spouse’s
voice when it was mixed up with a stranger’s voice (Johnsrude et al., 2013).
They found it easier to pick out what their spouse was saying compared with the
stranger.
The punch line is that people also found it much easier to
ignore their spouse’s voice when they wanted to.
So, familiar voices are easier to hear, and also easier to
tune out.
2. The
voice of love
There’s a subtle change in people’s voices when they speak
to someone they love.
Despite the subtlety of these shifts in the voice, people
can detect the changes by listening for just 2 seconds (Farley et al., 2013).
One of the study’s authors, Susan Hughes, explained that the
voices of new lovers had a special tone:
“There was vulnerability associated with the voices of those
newly in love. Perhaps people don’t want to be rejected.”
3.
Women attracted to deeper voices
It’s hardly a revelation that women prefer men with deeper
voices (Collins, 2000), although it does contain a mystery.
The mystery is: why? You might, quite sensibly, guess that
it signals a taller man, more muscles, a hairy chest and so on.
But actually when women are tested, a deeper voice only
tells a woman that a man probably weighs more. In other words, men with deeper
voices can just as easily be short, fat and totally lacking in muscles or a
hairy chest.
4.
Deeper voices are more memorable
Deeper voiced men also enjoy a range of other advantages:
they sound more like leaders (Rindy et al., 2012), consequently voters go for
deep-voiced males (Klofstad et al., 2012) and women find what they say easier
to remember (Smith et al., 2012).
5. Men
attracted to higher voices
Just as women prefer men with low voices, men prefer women
with breathy, high voices–but not too high-pitched and squeaky (Xu et al.,
2013).
The idea is that a high-pitched voice signals a smaller body
and a more submissive person (hey, no one said evolutionary psychology was
politically correct).
6.
Breathy male voices are sexy
Most know that a breathy female voices sound more attractive
to men, but one surprise in the research is that a breathy male voice also
sounds more attractive to women.
One theory of why breathiness is attractive for both men and
women is that it makes the voice sound less aggressive and therefore more
approachable (Xu et al., 2013).
7.
Beware the cheating voice
A potential problem with a man having a deep voice and a
woman having a high-pitched voice is that it signals attractiveness, which also
means they might be cheaters!
People seem to be implicitly aware of this (O’Connor et al.,
2011). One of the authors of the study, Professor David Feinberg, explains:
“Men with higher testosterone levels have lower pitched
voices, and women with higher estrogen levels have higher pitched voices. High
levels of these hormones are associated with adulterous behaviour and our
findings indicate individuals are somewhat aware of the link and may use this
in their search for a romantic partner.”
8. Love
your own voice?
Everyone must have had the experience of hearing their own
recorded voice back and being surprised by it. Many people say: “Oh, I really
hate the sound of my own voice!”
But is that true?
A study has tested this by having people rate a series of
voices, which, secretly, also included their own (Hughes, 2013). It turned out
that, on average, people really liked the sound of their own voice, despite not
recognising it as their own.
So, it’s not just politicians who love the sound of their
own voice–most of us do.
9.
Foreign accents less believable
One problem for those with a foreign accent, is that it
sounds less believable.
A recent study found that statements that were read in a
foreign accent were rated less truthful than those read in a native accent
(Lev-Ari et al., 2010).
While prejudice may be involved, it’s more likely down to
the fact that foreign accents are more difficult for the brain to process.
Unfortunately our minds apply a simple rule: if it’s more
difficult to understand, it’s less likely to be true.
10.
Imitate accents to understand
If two people with different accents are talking to each
other, they naturally blend them to match, usually without realising.
The reason for this is partly that when we imitating someone
else’s accent, it makes it easier to understand what they are saying (Adank et
al., 2010).
But make sure that you keep it subtle, or it will sound like
you’re mocking them.
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