Low is large: spatial location and pitch interact in voice-based body size estimation

The binding of incongruent cues poses a challenge for multimodal perception. Indeed, although taller objects emit sounds from higher elevations, low-pitched sounds are perceptually mapped both to large size and to low elevation. In the present study, we examined how these incongruent vertical spatial cues (up is more) and pitch cues (low is large) to size interact, and whether similar biases influence size perception along the horizontal axis. In Experiment 1, we measured listeners’ voice-based judgments of human body size using pitch-manipulated voices projected from a high versus a low, and a right versus a left, spatial location. Listeners associated low spatial locations with largeness for lowered-pitch but not for raised-pitch voices, demonstrating that pitch overrode vertical-elevation cues. Listeners associated rightward spatial locations with largeness, regardless of voice pitch. In Experiment 2, listeners performed the task while sitting or standing, allowing us to examine self-referential cues to elevation in size estimation. Listeners associated vertically low and rightward spatial cues with largeness more for lowered- than for raised-pitch voices. These correspondences were robust to sex (of both the voice and the listener) and head elevation (standing or sitting); however, horizontal correspondences were amplified when participants stood. Moreover, when participants were standing, their judgments of how much larger men’s voices sounded than women’s increased when the voices were projected from the low speaker. Our results provide novel evidence for a multidimensional spatial mapping of pitch that is generalizable to human voices and that affects performance in an indirect, ecologically relevant spatial task (body size estimation). These findings suggest that crossmodal pitch correspondences evoke both low-level and higher-level cognitive processes

SINGING VOICE ATTRACTIVENESS The Attractiveness of the Singing Voice in Women

Abstract Previous experiments have shown that voice pitch (the perception of fundamental frequency and/or corresponding harmonics) is positively associated with women's voice attractiveness, however all of this research is on women's speaking voices. Singing is important for the mating success of non-human animals, is crossculturally universal in humans, and is highly sexualized in many cultures. Thus, singing could contribute to mating success and attraction in humans. First, we investigated whether previous findings, that high voice pitch when speaking predicts women's voice attractiveness, extend to when women sing. We also examined whether pitch-and rhythm accuracy contribute to women's singing voice attractiveness. Voice pitch was positively related to women's singing voice attractiveness as judged by men more than when judged by women, and speaking voice attractiveness was positively related to singing voice attractiveness. Thus, men and women may be reacting to the same indicator of women's underlying quality (i.e. voice pitch) in both women's speaking and singing voices, differently. Men may be attracted to high pitch, whereas women may show a weaker relationship, as they tend to be more romantically jealous of women with high pitched voices. Pitch-and rhythm accuracy did not predict women's singing voice attractiveness. This result can be interpreted in different ways. It could mean that women's voice pitch may be more important in determining men's perceptions of their singing voice attractiveness than is their singing ability, or our measures were ill suited to the task. Collectively, these results are the first to show that singing voices are more attractive than speaking voices, people with attractive speaking voices tend to have attractive singing voices, and that singing and speaking voices relate to the same underlying qualities. Thus, singing may be an indicator of mate value and could have played a role in the evolution of sex differences in the voice if our ancestors had similar preferences. #&quot