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Human listeners can accurately judge strength and height relative to self from aggressive roars and speech
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 13:22 authored by Jordan Raine, Katarzyna Pisanski, Anna Oleszkiewicz, Julia SimnerJulia Simner, David RebyWhile animal vocalisations and human speech are known to communicate physical formidability, no previous study has examined whether human listeners can assess the strength or body size of vocalisers relative to their own, either from speech or from nonverbal vocalisations. Here, although men tended to underestimate women’s formidability, and women to overestimate men’s, listeners judged relative strength and height from aggressive roars and aggressive speech accurately. For example, when judging roars, male listeners accurately identified vocalisers who were substantially stronger than themselves in 88% of trials, and never as weaker. For male vocalisers only, roars functioned to exaggerate the expression of threat compared to aggressive speech, as men were rated as relatively stronger when producing roars. These results indicate that, like other mammals, the acoustic structure of human aggressive vocal signals (and in particular nonverbal roars) may have been selected to communicate functional information relevant to listeners’ survival.
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Publication status
- Published
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- Published version
Journal
iScienceISSN
2589-0042Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Volume
4Page range
273-280Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2018-05-18First Open Access (FOA) Date
2018-09-26First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-05-17Usage metrics
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