Human voice attractiveness processing: Electrophysiological evidence.

Human voice attractiveness processing: Electrophysiological evidence.
Biol Psychol. 2019 Nov 19;:107827
Authors: Zhang H, Liu M, Li W, Sommer W
Abstract
Voice attractiveness plays a significant role in social interaction and mate choice. However, how listeners perceive attractive voices and whether this process is mandatory, is poorly understood. The current study explores this question using event-related brain potentials. Participants listened to syllables spoken by male and female voices with high or low attractiveness while completing an implicit (voice un-related) tone detection task or explicitly judging voice attractiveness. In both tasks, attractive male voices elicited a larger N1 than unattractive voices. However, an effect of voice attractiveness on the late positive complex (LPC) was only seen in the explicit task but it was present to both same- and opposite-sex voices. Taken together, voice attractiveness processing during early stages appears to be rapid and mandatory and related to mate selection, whereas during later elaborated processing, voice attractiveness is strategic and aesthetics-based, requiring attentional resources.
PMID: 31756365 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Biological Psychology - November 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Zhang H, Liu M, Li W, Sommer W Tags: Biol Psychol Source Type: research