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Perceptions of Human Attractiveness Comprising Face and Voice Cues

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Abstract

In human mate choice, sexually dimorphic faces and voices comprise hormone-mediated cues that purportedly develop as an indicator of mate quality or the ability to compete with same-sex rivals. If preferences for faces communicate the same biologically relevant information as do voices, then ratings of these cues should correlate. Sixty participants (30 male and 30 female) rated a series of opposite-sex faces, voices, and faces together with voices for attractiveness in a repeated measures computer-based experiment. The effects of face and voice attractiveness on face-voice compound stimuli were analyzed using a multilevel model. Faces contributed proportionally more than voices to ratings of face-voice compound attractiveness. Faces and voices positively and independently contributed to the attractiveness of male compound stimuli although there was no significant correlation between their rated attractiveness. A positive interaction and correlation between attractiveness was shown for faces and voices in relation to the attractiveness of female compound stimuli. Rather than providing a better estimate of a single characteristic, male faces and voices may instead communicate independent information that, in turn, provides a female with a better assessment of overall mate quality. Conversely, female faces and voices together provide males with a more accurate assessment of a single dimension of mate quality.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Ph.D. studentship from the Division of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University. The authors would like to thank Ben Sigsworth for technical assistance conducting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 2AX, UK

    Timothy Wells

  2. Division of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Thom Baguley, Mark Sergeant & Andrew Dunn

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  1. Timothy Wells
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  2. Thom Baguley
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Correspondence to Timothy Wells.

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Wells, T., Baguley, T., Sergeant, M. et al. Perceptions of Human Attractiveness Comprising Face and Voice Cues. Arch Sex Behav 42, 805–811 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-012-0054-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-012-0054-0

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