Seven and up: individual differences in male voice fundamental frequency emerge before puberty and remain stable throughout adulthood

Voice pitch (the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency, F0) varies considerably even among individuals of the same sex and age, communicating a host of socially and evolutionarily relevant information. However, due to the almost exclusive utilization of cross-sectional designs in previous studies, it remains unknown whether these individual differences in voice pitch emerge before, during or after sexual maturation, and whether voice pitch remains stable into adulthood. Here, we measured the F0 parameters of men who were recorded once every 7 years from age 7 to 56 as they participated in the British television documentary Up Series. Linear mixed models revealed significant effects of age on all F0 parameters, wherein F0 mean, minimum, maximum and the standard deviation of F0 showed sharp pubertal decreases between age 7 and 21, yet remained remarkably stable after age 28. Critically, men's pre-pubertal F0 at age 7 strongly predicted their F0 at every subsequent adult age, explaining up to 64% of the variance in post-pubertal F0. This finding suggests that between-individual differences in voice pitch that are known to play an important role in men's reproductive success are in fact largely determined by age 7, and may therefore be linked to prenatal and/or pre-pubertal androgen exposure

A longitudinal study of within-individual variation in human voice pitch

International audienceIndividual differences in human voice pitch (fundamental frequency, F0) have evolutionary relevance. Fundamental frequency indicates the sex, age, and even dominance of the speaker, and influences a host of social assessments including mate preferences. Yet, due to the almost exclusive utilization of cross-sectional designs in previous work, it remains unknown whether individual differences in F0 emerge before or after sexual maturation, and whether F0 remains stable throughout a person’s lifetime. In our study, we tracked within-individual variation in the F0s of male and female speakers whose voices were recorded from childhood into adulthood. Voice recordings were extracted from digital archives. Our results corroborate those of earlier cross-sectional studies indicating a sharp decrease in male F0 at puberty resulting in the emergence of sexual dimorphism in adult F0. Critically, our results further revealed that men’s pre-pubertal F0 strongly predicted their F0 at every subsequent adult age, and that F0 remained remarkably stable within-individuals throughout their adulthood. These findings suggest that adult men’s voice pitch may be linked to pre-natal/pre-pubertal androgen exposure and may function as a reliable and stable signal of mate quality, with implications for our understanding of the developmental mechanisms, adaptive functions, and social perception of human voice pitch

Dataset for 'Seven and up: individual differences in male voice fundamental frequency emerge before puberty and remain stable throughout adulthood'

Data for paper published in Royal Society Open Science, October 2016,Vol. 3 Issue 10 Raw and averaged fundamental frequency measures taken from voice recordings of each male at each age (age 7 to 56)     Abstract Voice pitch (the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency, F0) varies considerably even among individuals of the same sex and age, communicating a host of socially and evolutionarily relevant information. However, due to the almost exclusive utilization of cross-sectional designs in previous studies, it remains unknown whether these individual differences in voice pitch emerge before, during or after sexual maturation, and whether voice pitch remains stable into adulthood. Here, we measured the F0 parameters of men who were recorded once every 7 years from age 7 to 56 as they participated in the British television documentary Up Series. Linear mixed models revealed significant effects of age on all F0 parameters, wherein F0 mean, minimum, maximum and the standard deviation of F0 showed sharp pubertal decreases between age 7 and 21, yet remained remarkably stable after age 28. Critically, men's pre-pubertal F0 at age 7 strongly predicted their F0 at every subsequent adult age, explaining up to 64% of the variance in post-pubertal F0. This finding suggests that between-individual differences in voice pitch that are known to play an important role in men's reproductive success are in fact largely determined by age 7, and may therefore be linked to prenatal and/or pre-pubertal androgen exposure. </p

Voice processing and voice-identity recognition

The human voice is the most important sound source in our environment, not only because it produces speech, but also because it conveys information about the speaker. In many situations, listeners understand the speech message and recognize the speaker with minimal effort. Psychophysical studies have investigated which voice qualities (such as vocal timbre) distinguish speakers and allow listeners to recognize speakers. Glottal and vocal tract characteristics strongly influence perceived similarity between speakers and serve as cues for voice-identity recognition. However, the importance of a particular voice quality for voice-identity recognition depends on the speaker and the stimulus. Voice-identity recognition relies on a network of brain regions comprising a core system of auditory regions within the temporal lobe (including regions dedicated to processing glottal and vocal tract characteristics and regions that play more abstract roles) and an extended system of nonauditory regions representing information associated with specific voice identities (e.g., faces and names). This brain network is supported by early, direct connections between the core voice system and an analogous core face system. Precisely how all these brain regions work together to accomplish voice-identity recognition remains an open question; answering it will require rigorous testing of hypotheses derived from theoretical accounts of voice processing