Translated material
X factor
A voice can tell a lot about the physical strength of its owner.
It is known that a handshake can tell a lot about a person’s physical strength - the harder he shakes his hand, the stronger he naturally is. Now scientists have established, writes the journal Proceedings of Royal Society, that a person’s voice carries no less, and perhaps more, information about a person’s strength. Moreover, to determine the strength of a person by his voice, you do not need to see the person himself; it is enough to listen to only a few sounds, words or phrases spoken by him.This conclusion was reached after a fairly simple experiment by Aaron Sell, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. First, he and his assistants recorded short, non-aggressive phrases that were spoken by more than 300 people, the vast majority of them men, from different countries, different professions and social groups, speaking their own languages. These short recordings were then given to 200 male and female students at the University of California to listen to. Participants in the experiment were asked to determine, using a 7-point system, the physical strength of the voice owners (from a weakling to a strongman) and their aggressiveness (from a weakling who wouldn’t hurt a fly to an aggressor).
Californian scientists themselves were surprised at how accurately and correctly the experiment participants determined their physical strength and aggressiveness from people’s voices. Correct answers were recorded in almost half of the cases. The percentage is very high and, according to probability theory, allows you to completely eliminate the possibility of random guessing.
Participants in the experiment found it much easier to work with male voices than with female voices. As for the fairer sex, they were not inferior to men in correct answers.
A reasonable question immediately arises: what is so sensational about Professor Sell’s experiment, because it’s no secret that a person’s strength can really be determined by their voice: the lower the voice, the physically stronger and stronger its owner. However, Aaron Sell has proven that neither pitch, nor timbre, nor volume, nor any other traditional acoustic characteristics of our voice have a direct connection with physical strength. What then helped the volunteers to make the right conclusions? Scientists cannot yet answer this question and call this mysterious characteristic the x-factor.
Professor Sell has a theory to explain this interesting human ability. He believes that it was given to us as a gift from our distant ancestors, who determined by the voice of the enemy whether it was worth taking the risk and engaging in battle with him. Many years ago, human life often depended on this skill, so it can be assumed that evolution developed it in our ancestors to a high degree of accuracy.
This theory explains well why working with male voices is easier than with female ones. The thing is that the lion's share of aggression falls on the stronger half of humanity. It was men who, in the overwhelming majority of cases, were the strongest warriors and skilled hunters in the tribe.
Why are women also able to accurately determine the strength of men by their voice? Because, Airon Cell answers, they also used this ability - many thousands of years ago they chose, including by their voice, the strongest men of the tribe as their husbands.