The flow of air is modified by the vibration of the vocal folds (or vocal cords) in our larynx (or voice box), as well as by the movement and relative positions of our tongue, jaw, lips, and so forth.
All sounds are the result of minute fluctuations in air pressure speech sounds in particular represent patterned fluctuations that are created when we force air through the vocal tract.
Voice pitch, the perceived “highness” or “lowness” of a voice, fundamentally is an expression of physiology, not psychology. Our research explores one such context that is particularly topical in this 2016 election season: how vocal traits, specifically voice pitch, can influence our selection of leaders. What is more surprising is that subtle characteristics of speech-features of which we are hardly aware-can have a significant impact on our perceptions of a person, even in contexts where we might think these perceptions should be irrelevant. The idea that listeners are affected not just by the words we say, but also by how we say them, should come as no surprise: We all can think of instances in which the same words said with different inflections can mean very different things. Spoken language is unique to humans, and it is far more complex than the communication systems of animals such as songbirds, but we too are influenced by nonverbal aspects of speech.
Both the signaler and the recipient stand to benefit from the information exchange, because both can avoid a potentially costly fight if they are not equally motivated or able to defend whatever is being contested, such as a territory, a prospective mate, or a source of food. For example, research by two of us (Anderson and Nowicki) shows that in an aggressive encounter between songbirds, the loudness of a bird’s song reliably signals the likelihood that the bird will physically attack its opponent.
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