Guldner, Stella;
Lavan, Nadine;
Lally, Clare;
Wittman, Lisa;
Nees, Frauke;
Flor, Herta;
McGettigan, Carolyn;
(2023)
Human talkers change their voices to elicit specific trait percepts.
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
10.3758/s13423-023-02333-y.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
McGettigan_s13423-023-02333-y.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
The voice is a variable and dynamic social tool with functional relevance for self-presentation, for example, during a job interview or courtship. Talkers adjust their voices flexibly to their situational or social environment. Here, we investigated how effectively intentional voice modulations can evoke trait impressions in listeners (Experiment 1), whether these trait impressions are recognizable (Experiment 2), and whether they meaningfully influence social interactions (Experiment 3). We recorded 40 healthy adult speakers’ whilst speaking neutrally and whilst producing vocal expressions of six social traits (e.g., likeability, confidence). Multivariate ratings of 40 listeners showed that vocal modulations amplified specific trait percepts (Experiments 1 and 2), which could be explained by two principal components relating to perceived affiliation and competence. Moreover, vocal modulations increased the likelihood of listeners choosing the voice to be suitable for corresponding social goals (i.e., a confident rather than likeable voice to negotiate a promotion, Experiment 3). These results indicate that talkers modulate their voice along a common trait space for social navigation. Moreover, beyond reactive voice changes, vocal behaviour can be strategically used by talkers to communicate subtle information about themselves to listeners. These findings advance our understanding of non-verbal vocal behaviour for social communication.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Human talkers change their voices to elicit specific trait percepts |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3758/s13423-023-02333-y |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02333-y |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10174136 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
