Facial, olfactory, and vocal cues to female reproductive value.

Facial, olfactory, and vocal cues may advertise women's fertility. However, most of the evidence for this proposal has come from studies of changes in young adult women's attractiveness over the menstrual cycle. By contrast with this emphasis on changes in attractiveness over the menstrual cycle, possible changes in women's attractiveness over their lifespan have received little attention. The present study investigated men's ratings of young girls' (11-15 years old), adult women's (19-30 years old) and circum-menopausal women's (50-65 years old) facial, body odor, and vocal attractiveness and femininity. Faces and voices, but not body odors, of young girls and adult women were perceived to be significantly more attractive and feminine than those of circum-menopausal women. These data suggest that facial and vocal cues may be cues to women's reproductive value, but that body odor cues do not necessarily advertise this information

Poetry in Pandemic: A Multimodal Neuroaesthetic Study on the Emotional Reaction to the Divina Commedia Poem

Poetry elicits emotions, and emotion is a fundamental component of human ontogeny. Although neuroaesthetics is a rapidly developing field of research, few studies focus on poetry, and none address its different modalities of fruition (MOF) of universal cultural heritage works, such as the Divina Commedia (DC) poem. Moreover, alexithymia (AX) resulted in being a psychological risk factor during the Covid-19 pandemic. The present study aims to investigate the emotional response to poetry excerpts from different cantica (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) of DC with the dual objective of assessing the impact of both the structure of the poem and MOF and that of the characteristics of the acting voice in experts and non-experts, also considering AX. Online emotion facial coding biosignal (BS) techniques, self-reported and psychometric measures were applied to 131 literary (LS) and scientific (SS) university students. BS results show that LS globally manifest more JOY than SS in both reading and listening MOF and more FEAR towards Inferno. Furthermore, LS and SS present different results regarding NEUTRAL emotion about acting voice. AX influences listening in NEUTRAL and SURPRISE expressions. DC’s structure affects DISGUST and SADNESS during listening, regardless of participant characteristics. PLEASANTNESS varies according to DC’s structure and the acting voice, as well as AROUSAL, which is also correlated with AX. Results are discussed in light of recent findings in affective neuroscience and neuroaesthetics, suggesting the critical role of poetry and listening in supporting human emotional processing

Talking the Talk: The Effect of Vocalics in an Interview

Our voices carry more than just content. People continuously make assumptions of one’s intelligence, credibility, personality, and other characteristics merely based on the way we talk. As the diversity of individuals in the workplace increases, so too do the differences in how those individuals talk. It is important that we understand how these different ways of speaking are being perceived in the workplace. More specifically, how are individuals being perceived prior to being hired via the interview process? This Honors Capstone project aims to understand the impact that vocal characteristics in an individual have on the interviewer’s perception of the interviewee, and how that impacts the hiring process. This project will offer professionals of all ages tangible advice on ways to increase one’s chances of receiving a job just by altering aspects of one’s voice

DULJINA IZGOVORNOGA PROLAZA I UGODA GLASA

Željelo se ispitati koliki je utjecaj duljine izgovornoga prolaza na procjenu ugode glasa. prvenstveno razlikuju li se glasovi profesionalci i neprofesionalci prema toj fizičkoj osobini. Drugo, htio se utvrdili odnos između duljine prolaza i subjektivne procjene jakosti glasa i opsega njegova izvora (prostiranja). Utvrđeno je da postoji značajna veza između duljine izgovornog prolaza i ugode glasa, jakosti i prostiranja. Rezultati pokazuju da ugodni muški glasovi imaju značajno dulji vokalni trakt izmjereno iz frekvencije F4 (20,36 cm) i iz uprosječenih vrijednosti iz F4 i viših formanala (19,1 cm) od neugodnih glasova (IH, 69 i IH, 02 cm) i od prosječno ugodnih glasova (18,98 i 18,11 cm) te da ženski ugodni glasovi imaju značajno dulji vokalni trakt (17,52 cm) od neugodnih (16.61 cm). Skupina glumaca ima značajno dulji vokalni trakt (19,89 i 18,76 cm) od novinara i neprofesionalaca (18,58 i 17,82 cm), a glumice imaju značajno dulji vokalni trakt mjereno iz F4 (17,92 cm) od neprofesionalki (17.0 cm). Može se zaključiti da se glumci primaju na studij i zbog fizičke predispozicije duljih izgovornih prolaza

Characteristics of Vocally Healthy Elderly Adults and Elderly Adults With Voice Complaints

OBJECTIVES: The number of cases of age-related voice changes associated with increasing age, known as presbyphonia, will increase as the population becomes older. Presbyphonia is the result of multi-system changes related to phonation that naturally occur with aging. Presbyphonia is associated with changes in acoustic, aerodynamic, and auditory-perceptual measurements; however, the literature is sparse on the differences between vocally-healthy elderly adults and elderly adults diagnosed with presbyphonia. The goal of the study is to compare the acoustic, aerodynamic, and auditory-perceptual characteristic of self-perceived vocally-healthy elderly adults and elderly adults with vocal fold atrophy. STUDY DESIGN: The study is a combined retrospective and prospective, blinded, nonrandomized, matched cohort study. METHODS: Vocally-healthy elderly speakers ages 60-84 (n = 50) and age-matched elderly speakers with vocal fold atrophy (n = 50) recorded samples of the first sentence of the Rainbow Passage. Acoustic and aerodynamic data were collected for the voice samples. Ten blinded raters provided auditory-perceptual voice ratings on a 100mm visual analog scale. Data were analyzed for significant differences in acoustic, aerodynamic, and auditory-perceptual differences between the two participant groups. RESULTS: Significant differences between the vocally healthy control and atrophy groups were observed in acoustic, aerodynamic, and auditory-perceptual characteristics. Regression analysis revealed the atrophy group had significantly worse mean Voice Handicap Index-10 scores, Cepstral Peak Prominence scores, Cepstral Spectral Index of Dysphonia scores, mean pitch, and duration of voice sample, overall severity, roughness, breathiness, strain, loudness, health of speaker, pleasantness of voice, and strength of voice (p < .05). CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to demonstrate significant differences between vocally healthy elderly people and elderly people with atrophy across acoustic, aerodynamic and auditory-perceptual measures

Attitudinal Judgments of Dialect Traits and Colorism in African Americans

This study demonstrates how language and complexion influence professional and social perceptions of African Americans. This study contains an online verbal-guise survey where participants either saw a photo of a lighter skin-toned African-American male and female or an electronically darkened version. Audio was attached to each photo, which contains traits of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the case of the male and Standard American English for the female. The results suggest African-American females are more likely to experience colorism in professional traits while African-American males are more likely to experience colorism in social traits. Additionally, the respondent’s race influences perceptions of AAVE.&nbsp

Northern English Dialects: A perceptual approach

Perceptual dialectology has the capacity to deliver a great many benefits to the study of language varieties. It also allows examination of the underlying factors in dialect use such as the ‘beliefs, attitudes and strategies’ (Preston, 1999: xxiii) which make up language users’ reactions to language varieties. In this way it has the potential to ask questions of identity and explore the reasons for dialect loyalty as well as complementing other research in the field of language variation and change. Using a perceptual framework, this research investigates the relationship between the north and south of England and gains access to some of the key concepts which affect informants’ view of this important social, cultural and historical relationship. Perceptions of salient dialect areas are also assessed using informants from three locations in the north of England via the completion of a draw-a-map task (Preston, 1999: xxxiv). Many of the factors which impact on the perception of dialect areas are discussed, with phenomena of proximity and cultural salience demonstrating an important role. An analysis of informants’ reactions to voice samples from across England is also undertaken using methods adapted from the fields of linguistics (Embleton & Wheeler, 1997, Giles & Powesland, 1975, Niedzielski & Preston, 2003) as well perceptual geography (Pocock, 1972). The link between map-based perception and reaction to voice samples is examined, with interesting conclusions. Four key research questions are addressed: 1. Do respondents have a linguistic ‘cognitive map’ of a north of England, and do respondents recognise there to be internal boundaries within ‘their’ north of England? 2. Does home-town location of informants affect the perception of dialect area? 3. What are informants’ perceptions of the language varieties in the north of England? 4. Is there a relationship between perception and ‘reality’ (production), and can respondents recognise the varieties they have identified? These questions will be addressed using the methods described above and the results accounted for through comparison with a wide range of previous studies in the fields of dialectology (Trudgill, 1999, Upton, Sanderson & Widdowson, 1987, Wells, 1982), social and cultural history (Wales, 2006), perceptual dialectology (Long & Preston, 2002), sociolinguistics (Giles & Powesland, 1975) and perceptual geography (Gould & White, 1986)