Cepstral Analysis of Sexually Appealing Voice

SummaryObjectives of the StudyIn spite of voice being an important parameter of mate choice, none of the studies have described the acoustic characteristics of the sexually appealing voice.MethodTwo hundred adults (100 men and 100 women) in the age range of 18–24 years were asked to narrate a topic, which was recorded directly onto Computerized Speech Lab (CSL) 6103 hardware. Recorded stimuli were presented to the six judges, and they were asked to indicate if the voice is sexually appealing on a five-point rating scale. The voices, which are consistently identified as sexually very attractive and unattractive were subjected to cepstral analysis through CSL.ResultsThe results of perceptual analysis revealed that 28 of the female voice samples and 39 of the male voice samples were rated as sexually attractive. These ratings were consistent within and across the judges. The cepstral analysis was then performed in all the voice samples and the results of independent t test revealed higher values of cepstral peak parameter (CPP) in the sexually attractive voices in comparison to the other voice samples in both the genders. The obtained results are discussed with respect to the harmonic organization in the voice samples.ConclusionsThe results of cepstral analysis in sexually attractive voices revealed higher values of CPP in comparison to the voices rated as sexually not appealing. This could be because of the presence of well-defined harmonic structure evidenced in the sexually appealing voice in comparison to voices rated as very unappealing. Our findings suggest that cepstral analysis is a good indicator of sexually appealing voice.