Low voice pitch, when accompanied by video, increases perceived dominance but not attractiveness

Abstract

Abstract Vocal masculinity, when increased digitally in audio recordings, tends to enhance men's perceived attractiveness and dominance. This observation has formed the basis of theories concerning the sexual selection of the male voice; however, recent studies have suggested that these judgements may disappear once listeners can see speakers. To test this proposition, 17 men of different height, weight and muscularity were filmed counting to five in full-body videos. Their vocal masculinity was manipulated to produce 12 unique variants of each video, which were assessed for attractiveness, fighting ability, physical strength, social dominance, height and weight. Both fundamental and formant frequency manipulations significantly predicted all dominance perceptions. Men were rated as stronger, better at fighting and more socially dominant as vocal masculinity increased. Attractiveness also increased; however, this was simply driven by an aversion to the feminized vocal manipulations, rather than a favouring of the more masculine ones. Lowering fundamental and formant frequencies also significantly increased estimations of weight, but not height. Overall, although visual cues had a much greater impact on all ratings, this paper shows that most findings from audio-only studies can be replicated when body size is also visible and suggests that perceived weight may contribute to these.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Royal Society Open Science, 2026 · DOI ↗