Relationships between acoustic characteristics of female voice and self-reported personality traits

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that human voice has an important role in communicating different traits, by implying speaker's sex, age, physical height, etc. Studies have also found correlations between various vocal characteristics and perceived personality traits. For example, there is evidence that higher pitch is positively related to perceived femininity, while lower pitch is related to perceived dominance. The aim of the present study was to investigate those relationships between voice and personality, by focusing on women's self--reports of masculinity, femisninity, dominance and affiliation. 48 women were recorded three times during vowel/a/production. After acoustic analysis, it was found that voice pitch was not related to personality traits. On the contrary, pitch variability was negatively related to masculinity, and positively to femininity. Furthermore, shimmer was positively, and harmonics to noise ratio negatively related to self--reported masculinity. Further regression analyses confirmed contribution of pitch variability and shimmer in explaining individual differences in masculinity. Besides the interpretation of the results in the context of previous findings, we discuss possible directions for future research in order to improve research methodology.