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Pisanski K, Mora EC, Pisanski A, et al. Volitional exaggeration of body size through fundamental and formant frequency modulation in humans. Sci Rep. 2016;6:34389doi: 10.1038/srep34389.
Pisanski, K., Mora, E. C., Pisanski, A., Reby, D., Sorokowski, P., Frackowiak, T., & Feinberg, D. R. (2016). Volitional exaggeration of body size through fundamental and formant frequency modulation in humans. Scientific reports, 634389. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34389
Pisanski, Katarzyna, et al. "Volitional exaggeration of body size through fundamental and formant frequency modulation in humans." Scientific reports vol. 6 (2016): 34389. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34389
Pisanski K, Mora EC, Pisanski A, Reby D, Sorokowski P, Frackowiak T, Feinberg DR. Volitional exaggeration of body size through fundamental and formant frequency modulation in humans. Sci Rep. 2016 Sep 30;6:34389. doi: 10.1038/srep34389. PMID: 27687571; PMCID: PMC5043380.
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Sci Rep. 2016 Sep 30;6:34389. doi: 10.1038/srep34389.

Volitional exaggeration of body size through fundamental and formant frequency modulation in humans.

Scientific reports

Katarzyna Pisanski, Emanuel C Mora, Annette Pisanski, David Reby, Piotr Sorokowski, Tomasz Frackowiak, David R Feinberg

Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Neuroscience &Behaviour, McMaster University, Canada.
  2. Institute of Psychology, University of Wroc?aw, Poland.
  3. Mammal Vocal Communication &Cognition Research Group, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, United Kingdom.
  4. Department of Animal and Human Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Havana, Cuba.
  5. Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas, Universidad Autonoma de Chile, El Llano Subercaseaux 2801, San Miguel, Santiago, Chile.

PMID: 27687571 PMCID: PMC5043380 DOI: 10.1038/srep34389

Abstract

Several mammalian species scale their voice fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies in competitive and mating contexts, reducing vocal tract and laryngeal allometry thereby exaggerating apparent body size. Although humans' rare capacity to volitionally modulate these same frequencies is thought to subserve articulated speech, the potential function of voice frequency modulation in human nonverbal communication remains largely unexplored. Here, the voices of 167 men and women from Canada, Cuba, and Poland were recorded in a baseline condition and while volitionally imitating a physically small and large body size. Modulation of F0, formant spacing (∆F), and apparent vocal tract length (VTL) were measured using Praat. Our results indicate that men and women spontaneously and systemically increased VTL and decreased F0 to imitate a large body size, and reduced VTL and increased F0 to imitate small size. These voice modulations did not differ substantially across cultures, indicating potentially universal sound-size correspondences or anatomical and biomechanical constraints on voice modulation. In each culture, men generally modulated their voices (particularly formants) more than did women. This latter finding could help to explain sexual dimorphism in F0 and formants that is currently unaccounted for by sexual dimorphism in human vocal anatomy and body size.

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