Women can tell from other women's voices how much of a threat they pose to their relationships, anthropologists have claimed。
In a study, men who were played recordings of a range of women's voices judged those with higher-pitched tones the most attractive – especially when asked to choose who they would favor for a one-night stand. And women who listened to the same range of voices could accurately predict which would be the most appealing to the men。
The researchers, at Pennsylvania State University, believe that women's high voices may signal youth and fertility to men who are listening, in the same way that men's deep voices are believed to signal dominance。
"These results support our prediction that women use vocal characteristics to track the threat potential of their competitors," said David Puts, the anthropologist who led the study. "They shed new light on how men choose and women compete for mates. We found that women were most threatened by a high, youthful-sounding voice in another woman."
"Because men prefer feminine voices, one might also expect that women vying for the attentions of men would elevate vocal femininity by raising the pitch and timbre of their voices," the researchers add。