Listening to Voices and Judging People

The impact of vocal cues on personality judgments is investigated in an experimental study that used technically manipulated levels of pitch (low and high frequency), sex of the speaker, and content area (e.g., fixing a bike, baking, reading directory information) as independent and the entailing personality judgments as dependent variables. Subjects (48 male and 48 female) were presented with voice probes and ratings of physical (age, sex, height, stature), and psychological characteristics (bipolar adjectives representing the "Big Five" dimensions of personality) were collected. Results confirm that voice characteristics have an impact on interpersonal perception and that vocal cues are processed separately by the listener. Results are discussed with reference to processing demands and cognitive load on the working memory of a listener.