How to know if he loves you, it's in his....
- Researchers
found voice modulations make speaker attractive to listener
- Men
were found to vary tone in a 'sing-song voice' like actor Leslie Phillips'
- Men reached lower minimum voice pitch speaking to 'less attractive' women
When it comes to the language of love, it's not
what you say, but how you say it.
People make subtle changes in their voices when
they speak to people they find attractive, say scientists. And these voice modulations make the speaker more
attractive to the listener too, the research by Scotland's University of
Stirling found.
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A study found that people make subtle changes in their voices when speaking to
people they find attractive.In
the study of 110 heterosexual men and women, who were either English or Czech,
male speakers of both languages varied their tone more when they spoke to women
they found attractive, speaking in a ‘sing-song’ voice, similar to actor Leslie
Phillips.
The
men also reached a lower minimum voice pitch, or 'deep voice', compared with
when they spoke to women they considered less attractive.
Luckily
for them, female listeners found that style of speech more attractive too.
Lead researcher Juan David Leongómez said it is important for men to sound
masculine, but that extreme masculinity can be associated with negative
traits.
He
said: 'Previous research has shown that humans signal their romantic interest
in several different ways, including non-verbal behaviours and body language,
like eye contact and casual touching,- for example playfully touching someone's
hair.
'Our
study shows that people also modulate their voices to signal romantic interest
and that this, in turn, seems to make the speaker seem more attractive.
+2
Men
were found to speak in a more 'sing-song' voice similar to actor Leslie
Phillips (pictured) when speaking to women they found attractive
'For
men, it is important to sound masculine, which is manifested in a deeper voice
pitch. However, extreme masculinity is associated with negative traits in a
partner, like a tendency for increased aggressiveness and promiscuity.
'This
puts men in a dilemma, because they have to convey two seemingly contradictory
messages at the same time: "I am a masculine man", and "I'd be a
good partner and father".
‘The
solution may be to vary their pitch – which would explain the sing-songy
quality of the voices we observed in men speaking to attractive women.'
The
researchers' findings also showed that by-standers respond to these subtle
differences too. When the voice recording of a man speaking to an attractive
woman was played to female listeners, the listeners found the voice more
attractive than a recording of the same man speaking to a less attractive
woman.
The
men whose voices were recorded were Czech and the bystanding female listeners
were British - so the experiment was designed to ensure the women did not understand
the words being spoken.
This
indicates the male speakers' attractiveness was due to their subtle voice
changes, rather than what they were saying.
Mr
Leongómez said: 'If a woman perceives a man's voice to be more sing-songy, then
it is likely the man finds her attractive. However, these vocal modulations are
very subtle and probably not produced consciously by the speaker.
'Additionally,
while they help make a person sound more attractive to the opposite sex, people
do not seem to be aware of why they find the voice more attractive.'
The
study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, added these
subtle changes are probably not produced consciously by the speaker.
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