How voice shapes perceived apologies: Impression structure and acoustics

This study aimed to clarify how listeners form impressions from vocal apologies and examined the impression structure and its acoustic correlates, with attention to gender differences in speaker voice. Sixty-six voice stimuli (33 male, 33 female) were rated on eight social traits by 228 participants. Ratings were analyzed using principal component analysis with varimax rotation. Principal component analysis revealed two key impression dimensions: Valence and Dominance, which are well-established components in previous research on social perception. Interestingly, while Valence emerged as the first principal component for male voices, Dominance was the primary dimension for female voices, suggesting that the focus of impression formation may differ by gender, reflecting socially driven expectations, particularly in contexts such as apologies. Acoustic analyses showed that mean F0 significantly contributed to impressions in both female and male voices; lower pitch was linked to greater attractiveness and competence in male voices, but to higher aggressiveness and dominance in female voices. This suggests that a low-pitched voice may have positive effects for men, but negative ones for women, highlighting how the same acoustic cue can carry divergent social meanings depending on the speaker’s gender.