When female speakers increased their pitch they were judged as more attractive; unexpected was that male speakers tended to rate other males who shifted their voice up in pitch as more attractive

Vocal attractiveness and voluntarily pitch-shifted voices. Yi Zheng et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, January 9 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.01.002

Abstract: Previous studies have found that using software to pitch shift people's voices can boost their perceived attractiveness to opposite-sex adults: men prefer women's voices when pitch-shifted up, and women prefer men's voices when pitch-shifted down. In this study, we sought to determine whether speakers could affect their perceived vocal attractiveness by voluntarily shifting their own voices to reach specific target pitches (+20 Hz or −20 Hz, a pitch increment that is based on prior research). Two sets of Chinese college students participated in the research: 115 who served as speakers whose voices were recorded, and 167 who served as raters who evaluated the speakers' voices. We found that when female speakers increased their pitch they were judged as more attractive to both opposite-sex and same-sex raters. An additional unexpected finding was that male speakers tended to rate other males who shifted their voice up in pitch as more attractive. These findings suggest that voluntary pitch shifts can affect attractiveness, but that they do not fully match the patterns observed when pitch shifting is done digitally.

Keywords: Vocal attractivenessPitch shifting