The voice of dominance

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Abstract
Among animals dominance and aggression is conveyed in part by vocalizations with low fundamental frequency (F0), whereas submission is signalled by cries with high F0, e.g., growls and whines, respectively. It has been suggested that low and high resonances of vocalizations should serve the same function and that this helps to explain the origin of the smile, a nonaggressive signal, since retracting the corners of the mouth during a vocalization would raise the resonant frequencies [Ohala, “The acoustic origin of the smile,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 68, S33 (1980)]. Do these acoustic parameters function similarly in human vocalizations? To investigate this, American English listeners were asked to listen to and to determine subjectively the relative “dominance” evident in voice samples that were actually synthetic speech samples devoid of recognizable lexical elements but varying in F0 and formant structure. Preliminary results suggest that perceived dominance is correlated inversely with overall F0 of voice. Further results will be presented and discussed in relation to current ethological theory. [Supported by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.]

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