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, femininity, 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.