Voice-based judgments of sex, height, weight, attractiveness, health, and psychological traits based on free speech versus scripted speech.

How do we perceive others based on their voices? This question has attracted research and media attention for decades, producing hundreds of studies showing that the voice is socially and biologically relevant, but these studies vary in methodology and ecological validity. Here we test whether vocalizers producing read versus free speech are judged similarly by listeners on ten biological and/or psychosocial traits. In perception experiments using speech from 208 men and women and ratings from 4,088 listeners, we show that listeners' assessments of vocalizer sex and age are highly accurate, regardless of speech type. Assessments of body size, femininity-masculinity and women's health also did not differ between free and read speech. In contrast, read speech elicited higher ratings of attractiveness, dominance and trustworthiness in both sexes and of health in males compared to free speech. Importantly, these differences were small, and we additionally show moderate to strong correlations between ratings of the same vocalizers based on their read and free speech for all ten traits, indicating that voice-based judgments are highly consistent within speakers, whether or not speech is spontaneous. Our results provide evidence that the human voice can communicate various biological and psychosocial traits via both read and free speech, with theoretical and practical implications.

Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) across 37 Languages.

Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg's 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review reveals that most studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. Here, aiming to achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, we developed a short version of the scale-the TLS-15-comprised of 15 items with 5-point, rather than 9-point, response scales. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test-retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provide support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which can be used as a measure of love components-either separately or jointly as a three-factor measure.

Comparing accuracy in voice-based assessments of biological speaker traits across speech types.

Nonverbal acoustic parameters of the human voice provide cues to a vocaliser's sex, age, and body size that are relevant in human social and sexual communication, and also increasingly so for computer-based voice recognition and synthesis technologies. While studies have shown some capacity in human listeners to gauge these biological traits from unseen speakers, it remains unknown whether speech complexity improves accuracy. Here, in over 200 vocalisers and 1500 listeners of both sexes, we test whether voice-based assessments of sex, age, height and weight vary from isolated vowels and words, to sequences of vowels and words, to full sentences or paragraphs. We show that while listeners judge sex and especially age more accurately as speech complexity increases, accuracy remains high across speech types, even for a single vowel sound. In contrast, the actual heights and weights of vocalisers explain comparatively less variance in listener's assessments of body size, which do not vary systematically by speech type. Our results thus show that while more complex speech can improve listeners' biological assessments, the gain is ecologically small, as listeners already show an impressive capacity to gauge speaker traits from extremely short bouts of standardised speech, likely owing to within-speaker stability in underlying nonverbal vocal parameters such as voice pitch. We discuss the methodological, technological, and social implications of these results.

Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world.

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.

Modernization, collectivism, and gender equality predict love experiences in 45 countries.

Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, we explored whether countries' modernization indexes are related to love experiences measured by three subscales (passion, intimacy, commitment) of the Triangular Love Scale. Analyzing data from 9474 individuals from 45 countries, we tested for relationships with country-level predictors, namely, modernization proxies (i.e., Human Development Index, World Modernization Index, Gender Inequality Index), collectivism, and average annual temperatures. We found that mean levels of love (especially intimacy) were higher in countries with higher modernization proxies, collectivism, and average annual temperatures. In conclusion, our results grant some support to the hypothesis that modernization processes might influence love experiences.

Do Voice-Based Judgments of Socially Relevant Speaker Traits Differ Across Speech Types?

PURPOSE: The human voice is a powerful and evolved social tool, with hundreds of studies showing that nonverbal vocal parameters robustly influence listeners' perceptions of socially meaningful speaker traits, ranging from perceived gender and age to attractiveness and trustworthiness. However, these studies have utilized a wide variety of voice stimuli to measure listeners' voice-based judgments of these traits. Here, in the largest scale study known to date, we test whether listeners judge the same unseen speakers differently depending on the complexity of the neutral speech stimulus, from single vowel sounds to a full paragraph. METHOD: In a playback experiment testing 2,618 listeners, we examine whether commonly studied voice-based judgments of attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, femininity/masculinity, and health differ if listeners hear isolated vowels, a series of vowels, single words, single sentences (greeting), counting from 1 to 10, or a full paragraph recited aloud (Rainbow Passage), recorded from the same 208 men and women. Data were collected using a custom-designed interface in which vocalizers and traits were randomly assigned to raters. RESULTS: Linear-mixed models show that the type of voice stimulus does indeed consistently affect listeners' judgments. Overall, ratings of attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, health, masculinity among men, and femininity among women increase as speech duration increases. At the same time, speaker-level regression analyses show that interindividual differences in perceived speaker traits are largely preserved across voice stimuli, especially among those of a similar duration. CONCLUSIONS: Socially relevant perceptions of speakers are not wholly changed but rather moderated by the length of their speech. Indeed, the same vocalizer is perceived in a similar way regardless of which neutral statements they speak, with the caveat that longer utterances explain the most shared variance in listeners' judgments and elicit the highest ratings on all traits, possibly by providing additional nonverbal information to listeners. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21158890.

Sex differences in human mate preferences vary across sex ratios.

A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attention has been directed towards the relationship between sex ratio and mate preferences, despite the importance of mate preferences in the human mating literature. To address this gap, we examined sex ratio's relationship to the variation in preferences for attractiveness, resources, kindness, intelligence and health in a long-term mate across 45 countries (n = 14 487). We predicted that mate preferences would vary according to relative power of choice on the mating market, with increased power derived from having relatively few competitors and numerous potential mates. We found that each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce. This pattern dovetails with those found for mating strategies in humans and mate preferences across species, highlighting the importance of sex ratio for understanding variation in human mate preferences.

Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.

Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love: Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Triangular Love Scale in 25 Countries.

The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were based on a sample of 7332 participants from 25 countries (from all inhabited continents). We tested configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, all of which confirmed the cultural universality of the theoretical construct of love analyzed in our study. We also observed that levels of love components differ depending on relationship duration, following the dynamics suggested in the Triangular Theory of Love. Supplementary files with all our data, including results on love intensity across different countries along with STLS versions adapted in a few dozen languages, will further enable more extensive research on the Triangular Theory of Love.

Difference in Perception of Onset of Old Age in Traditional (Hadza) and Modern (Polish) Societies.

Despite relatively clear physiological indicators of old age, little is known about cross-cultural differences in psychological perceptions of the transition to old age. Although recent studies suggest consistency between modern countries, the subjective perception of old age onset in traditional societies remains poorly explored. Therefore, we compared the perception of timing of old age between a traditional tribe of hunter-gatherers (the Hadza) and a Polish sample representing a modern, industrialized population. The results indicate that the Hadza perceive old age onset as being significantly earlier than do the Poles. Furthermore, we found between-gender differences in the Polish sample: men set a lower threshold of old age onset than women. The Hadza showed no between-gender difference. Although the samples were matched for age, a larger proportion of Hadza considered themselves old. We discuss these findings from cultural and demographical perspectives.

Subjective Happiness Among Polish and Hadza People.

Life satisfaction and happiness were broadly studied in Western populations, whereas evidence from traditional societies remains surprisingly scarce. We collected data on the happiness from 145 Hadza, and compared it with data obtained from 156 Poles, representing Westernized society. Participants were asked to answer four simple questions from Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999). Results indicate that Hadza report a higher level of happiness with their lives than do Polish people. Our findings also show that sex was not related to happiness in both populations, while age was a negative predictor of happiness, but only among Poles. Therefore, we hypothesize that positive perception of aging in societies may increase their actual happiness.

Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication.

Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives-an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective-offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the literature is fraught with conflicting methods, analyses, results, and conclusions. Using a new 45-country sample (N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remains robust: Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.

Contrasting Computational Models of Mate Preference Integration Across 45 Countries.

Humans express a wide array of ideal mate preferences. Around the world, people desire romantic partners who are intelligent, healthy, kind, physically attractive, wealthy, and more. In order for these ideal preferences to guide the choice of actual romantic partners, human mating psychology must possess a means to integrate information across these many preference dimensions into summaries of the overall mate value of their potential mates. Here we explore the computational design of this mate preference integration process using a large sample of n = 14,487 people from 45 countries around the world. We combine this large cross-cultural sample with agent-based models to compare eight hypothesized models of human mating markets. Across cultures, people higher in mate value appear to experience greater power of choice on the mating market in that they set higher ideal standards, better fulfill their preferences in choice, and pair with higher mate value partners. Furthermore, we find that this cross-culturally universal pattern of mate choice is most consistent with a Euclidean model of mate preference integration.

Community size and perception of older adults in the Cook Islands.

Attitudes towards aging are often negative, a phenomenon known as ageism. However, personal contact with older adults and intergenerational exchange in the context of close families may mitigate such negative tendencies. So far, these effects have been studied in Western and industrialized contexts. The present study extended this work to the Cook Islands archipelago, a group of islands in the South Pacific characterized by low levels of industrialization and relative isolation from foreign influences. We tested the hypothesis that attitudes toward aging in the Cook Islands would be more positive than in the world at large, and that, within the archipelago, attitudes towards aging would be more positive in smaller, less industrialized communities with closer family ties. Participants (n = 70), were recruited from three islands varying in community size and strength of the family ties among inhabitants. They rated their aging attitudes on four dimensions. Contrary to our hypotheses, attitudes in the Cook Islands did not differ from those reported in industrialized nations and did not vary significantly across islands, even after controlling for personal contact to older adults. Potential limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Multimodal stress detection: Testing for covariation in vocal, hormonal and physiological responses to Trier Social Stress Test.

Examining the effects of acute stress across multiple modalities (behavioral, physiological, and endocrinological) can increase our understanding of the interplay among stress systems, and may improve the efficacy of stress detection. A multimodal approach also allows for verification of the biological stress response, which can vary between individuals due to myriad internal and external factors, thus allowing for reliable interpretation of behavioral markers of stress. Here, controlling for variables known to affect the magnitude of the stress response, we utilized the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) to elicit an acute stress response in 80 healthy adult men and women. The TSST involves an interview-style oral presentation and critical social evaluation, and is highly effective in inducing psychosocial stress. Participants completed the study in individual 2 h sessions, during which we collected voice, polygraph and salivary hormone measures in baseline, stress, and relaxation phases. Our results show sizeable systematic increases in voice pitch (mean, minimum and variation in fundamental frequency, F0), hormone levels (cortisol) and decreases in skin temperature and hand movement during psychosocial stress, with striking similarities between men and women. However, cortisol and skin temperature only weakly predicted changes in voice pitch during stress, in either women or men, respectively. Thus, while our results provide compelling evidence that psychosocial stress manifests itself behaviorally by increasing voice pitch and its variability alongside simultaneous activation of physiological and endocrinological stress systems, our results also highlight a relatively weak degree of intra-individual 'response coherence' across these stress systems, with dissociations among different stress measures related most strongly to sex.

Global Study of Social Odor Awareness.

Olfaction plays an important role in human social communication, including multiple domains in which people often rely on their sense of smell in the social context. The importance of the sense of smell and its role can however vary inter-individually and culturally. Despite the growing body of literature on differences in olfactory performance or hedonic preferences across the globe, the aspects of a given culture as well as culturally universal individual differences affecting odor awareness in human social life remain unknown. Here, we conducted a large-scale analysis of data collected from 10 794 participants from 52 study sites from 44 countries all over the world. The aim of our research was to explore the potential individual and country-level correlates of odor awareness in the social context. The results show that the individual characteristics were more strongly related than country-level factors to self-reported odor awareness in different social contexts. A model including individual-level predictors (gender, age, material situation, education, and preferred social distance) provided a relatively good fit to the data, but adding country-level predictors (Human Development Index, population density, and average temperature) did not improve model parameters. Although there were some cross-cultural differences in social odor awareness, the main differentiating role was played by the individual differences. This suggests that people living in different cultures and different climate conditions may still share some similar patterns of odor awareness if they share other individual-level characteristics.

Corrigendum: Marital Satisfaction, Sex, Age, Marriage Duration, Religion, Number of Children, Economic Status, Education, and Collectivistic Values: Data from 33 Countries.

[This corrects the article on p. 1199 in vol. 8, PMID: 28785230.].