Center for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2010 Nov 22;277(1699):3509-18. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0769. Epub 2010 Jun 16.
Recent research has shown that humans, like many other animals, have a specialization for assessing fighting ability from visual cues. Because it is probable that the voice contains cues of strength and formidability that are not available visually, we predicted that selection has also equipped humans with the ability to estimate physical strength from the voice. We found that subjects accurately assessed upper-body strength in voices taken from eight samples across four distinct populations and language groups: the Tsimane of Bolivia, Andean herder-horticulturalists and United States and Romanian college students. Regardless of whether raters were told to assess height, weight, strength or fighting ability, they produced similar ratings that tracked upper-body strength independent of height and weight. Male voices were more accurately assessed than female voices, which is consistent with ethnographic data showing a greater tendency among males to engage in violent aggression. Raters extracted information about strength from the voice that was not supplied from visual cues, and were accurate with both familiar and unfamiliar languages. These results provide, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence that both men and women can accurately assess men's physical strength from the voice, and suggest that estimates of strength are used to assess fighting ability.
最近的研究表明，人类和许多其他动物一样，有一种从视觉线索评估战斗能力的专门能力。因为声音中可能包含力量和威慑力的线索，而这些线索在视觉上是无法获得的，所以我们预测，人类也进化出了从声音中估计身体力量的能力。我们发现，被试者能够准确地从来自四个不同群体和语言群体的八个样本中评估上半身的力量：玻利维亚的提斯曼人、安第斯牧民和园艺家、美国和罗马尼亚的大学生。无论评分者被告知评估身高、体重、力量还是战斗能力，他们给出的评分都非常相似，这些评分与身高和体重无关，而是独立地反映了上半身的力量。男性的声音比女性的声音更能被准确地评估，这与民族志数据一致，这些数据显示男性更倾向于进行暴力攻击。评分者从声音中提取了视觉线索无法提供的力量信息，而且无论是熟悉的语言还是陌生的语言，他们的评估都很准确。这些结果首次直接证明了男性和女性都可以从声音中准确地评估男性的身体力量，并表明力量的估计被用于评估战斗能力。
