8 research outputs found
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Women’s voice pitch lowers after pregnancy
Women’s voice pitch (the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency, F0) varies across the menstrual cycle and lowers after menopause, and may represent a putative signal of women’s fertility and reproductive age. Yet, despite dramatic changes in women’s sex hormone levels and bodies during and after pregnancy, previous between-subject and case studies have not found systematic changes in F0 due to pregnancy. Here, we tracked within-individual variation in 20 mothers’ voices during their first pregnancy, as well as up to 5 years before conception and 5 years postpartum. Voice recordings from 20 age-matched nulliparous women were measured as a control. Linear Mixed Models indicated that F0 mean, range and variation changed significantly following pregnancy in mothers, controlling for age at time of recording, whereas we did not observe any F0 changes across corresponding timeframes in our sample of nulliparous controls. Mothers’ voices became significantly lower-pitched and more monotonous during the first year postpartum compared to during pregnancy or before. These F0 parameters did not decrease within-individuals over a 5-year period prior to conception above and beyond the effects of ageing. Although voice pitch decreased following pregnancy, mothers’ F0 parameters reverted after the first year postpartum, approaching pre-pregnancy levels. Our results demonstrate that pregnancy has a transient and perceptually salient masculinizing effect on women’s voices
Urban morphometrics and the intangible uniqueness of tangible heritage. An evidence-based generative design experiment in historical Kochi (IN)
Asia is urbanising rapidly. Current urbanisation practices often compromise sustainability, prosperity, and local quality of life while context-sensitive alternatives show very limited impact. A third way is necessary to integrate mass-production, heritage, and human values. As part of UNICITI's initiative, A Third Way of Building Asian Cities, we propose a scalable and replicable methodology which captures unique morphological traits of urban types (i.e., areas with homogenous urban form) to inform innovative large-scale and context-sensitive practices. We extract urban types from a large set of quantitative descriptors and provide a systematic way to generate figure-grounds aligned with such urban types. The application of the proposed methodology to Kochi (IN) reveals 24 distinct urban types with unique morphological features. Profiles, containing design-relevant values of morphometrics, are then produced for a selection of urban types located in the historical district of Fort Kochi/Mattancherry. Based on these, figure-ground design demonstrations are carried out in three sample sites. Outcomes seem aligned with the urban character of their respective types, while allowing distinct design expressions, suggesting that the proposed approach has potential to inform the design in historical/heritage areas and, more broadly, the search for a Third Way of Building Asian Cities
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Dataset for research paper: Effects of Racial Bias on Composite Construction
Data for paper published in Applied Cognitive Psychology March 2020We presented participants with a racially-ambiguous face and biased them into thinking it was Indian or British. These participants then constructed a facial composite, using E-Fit6. The composites were rated by separate groups of participants for racial appearance (Indian or European) and degree of resemblance to the target face.Constructors and raters were European, overseas Indian or Indians living in India. The datafile contains the raw data for this study: ratings of the ambiguous face's apparent race, the ratings of the composites' apparent race, and the ratings of the composites' resemblance to the target face.AbstractWe investigated how prior bias about a face's racial characteristics can affect its encoding and resultant facial composite construction. In total, 61 participant (24 Europeans, 18 Indians living in India and 19 Indians living in Europe) saw a racially ambiguous unfamiliar face and were led to believe it was either European or Indian. They created a composite of this face, using EFIT6. Two groups of independent raters (one Indian, the other European) then assessed the apparent race of each composite. A different two groups (one Indian, one European) assessed each composite's degree of resemblance to the target face, to determine whether this was influenced by the constructors' initial categorisation of the target face as “own-race” or “otherrace.” Composites appeared significantly more “Asian” or “European” according to the bias induced in their creators, but there was no evidence of any own-race bias in the resemblance ratings for the composites. </div
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Data for paper: Women's voice pitch lowers after pregnancy, Evolution and Human Behavior
Data for Katarzyna Pisanski, Kavya Bhardwaj David Reby Women's voice pitch lowers after pregnancy Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 39, Issue 4, 2018
Abstract
Women's voice pitch (the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency, F0) varies across the menstrual cycle and lowers after menopause, and may represent a putative signal of women's fertility and reproductive age. Yet, despite dramatic changes in women's sex hormone levels and bodies during and after pregnancy, previous between-subject and case studies have not found systematic changes in F0 due to pregnancy. Here, we tracked within-individual variation in 20 mothers' voices during their first pregnancy, as well as up to 5?years before conception and 5?years postpartum. Voice recordings from 20 age-matched nulliparous women were measured as a control. Linear Mixed Models indicated that F0 mean, range and variation changed significantly following pregnancy in mothers, controlling for age at time of recording, whereas we did not observe any F0 changes across corresponding timeframes in our sample of nulliparous controls. Mothers' voices became significantly lower-pitched and more monotonous during the first year postpartum compared to during pregnancy or before. These F0 parameters did not decrease within-individuals over a 5-year period prior to conception above and beyond the effects of ageing. Although voice pitch decreased following pregnancy, mothers' F0 parameters reverted after the first year postpartum, approaching pre-pregnancy levels. Our results demonstrate that pregnancy has a transient and perceptually salient masculinizing effect on women's voices.</p