Hearing what you see: Sex differences and correlations between human vocal, facial, and anthropometric traits
Open Access
- Author:
- Dooling, Sean William
- Area of Honors:
- Biological Anthropolgy
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Mark Shriver, Thesis Supervisor
Timothy Michael Ryan, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- voice
body size
anthropometrics
face
fundamental frequency
formants
height
weight
PCA - Abstract:
- Introduction: The relationship between vocal characteristics such as fundamental frequency and formant frequencies and anthropometric measurements of height and weight among others has been well studied over the years. Nonetheless, the literature is not consistent as to the significance and magnitude of their relationships. In addition, the relationship between vocal characteristics and other anthropometric measurements such as strength and objective facial measurements has yet to be investigated. Method: The focus of this research is to contribute to the discussion on such relationships using new data from one of the largest samples to date (n=1014). Vocal traits and anthropometric measurements were collected as a part of the PSU ADAPT study. Voice traits were extracted from recordings using Praat. Objective facial measurements were obtained using principle component analysis on quasi-landmarks of 3d images of the face. These traits were analyzed for sex differences using Student’s T test and for correlations using Pearson’s product moment correlation. Results: A number of statistically significant correlations are found between the vocal traits and anthropometric measurements. Characterizations of the formant frequencies (e.g., average formant frequency, formant dispersion, and formant position) show stronger correlations with the anthropometric characteristics than fundamental frequency in both males and females. Average formant frequency and formant position show more significant correlations with anthropometric traits relating to body size (e.g., height, weight, etc.) while formant dispersion shows more significant correlations with aspects of the face.