Integrating cues of social interest and voice pitch in men's preferences for women's voices

Most previous studies of vocal attractiveness have focused on preferences for physical characteristics of voices such as pitch. Here we examine the content of vocalizations in interaction with such physical traits, finding that vocal cues of social interest modulate the strength of men's preferences for raised pitch in women's voices. Men showed stronger preferences for raised pitch when judging the voices of women who appeared interested in the listener than when judging the voices of women who appeared relatively disinterested in the listener. These findings show that voice preferences are not determined solely by physical properties of voices and that men integrate information about voice pitch and the degree of social interest expressed by women when forming voice preferences. Women's preferences for raised pitch in women's voices were not modulated by cues of social interest, suggesting that the integration of cues of social interest and voice pitch when men judge the attractiveness of women's voices may reflect adaptations that promote efficient allocation of men's mating effort.     

After a Men's Cult

The Cassowary's Revenge: The Life and Death of Masculinity in. New Guinea Society. Donald Tuzin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. 248 pp.     

Men's social networks and contraception in Ghana

In this paper, longitudinal data from northern Ghana is used to assess the effects of encouragement to use family planning that men receive from their personal network partners on the adoption of modern contraception by their wives. The study tests a conceptual model that, in addition to the effect of men's network encouragement, incorporates the effect of encouragement to use family planning that women receive from their respective network partners and the effect of spousal communication on reproductive matters and approval of family planning. Results show that encouragement received by men from their social networks significantly increases the likelihood of subsequent contraceptive use by their wives but this effect operates primarily by galvanizing spousal communication on reproductive matters. The effect of encouragement received by women from their respective network partners is largely independent from the effect of male network encouragement but it influences contraceptive adoption both directly and through spousal communication.     

Menopause and the transmission of women's knowledge: African American and white women's perspectives

Recent menopause literature does not sufficiently explore women's attitudes on the transmission of knowledge about menopause from sources other than biomedical providers. Analysis of 70 interviews with African American and Euro-American women shows that their perceptions of the intergenerational transfer of knowledge about menopause from their mothers shaped their attitudes toward menopause and the health-care technologies surrounding it. African American women who grew up in the segregated South frequently expressed that their mothers provided them with the knowledge and power to negotiate difficulties during the menopausal process, while many middle-class Euro-American women expressed that their mothers did not. Drawing on literature that examines the effects of race, class, and kinship on mother/daughter relationships, this article explores the reasons for this divergence.     

Regret and the rationality of choices

Regret helps to optimize decision behaviour. It can be defined as a rational emotion. Several recent neurobiological studies have confirmed the interface between emotion and cognition at which regret is located and documented its role in decision behaviour. These data give credibility to the incorporation of regret in decision theory that had been proposed by economists in the 1980s. However, finer distinctions are required in order to get a better grasp of how regret and behaviour influence each other. Regret can be defined as a predictive error signal but this signal does not necessarily transpose into a decision-weight influencing behaviour. Clinical studies on several types of patients show that the processing of an error signal and its influence on subsequent behaviour can be dissociated. We propose a general understanding of how regret and decision-making are connected in terms of regret being modulated by rational antecedents of choice. Regret and the modification of behaviour on its basis will depend on the criteria of rationality involved in decision-making. We indicate current and prospective lines of research in order to refine our views on how regret contributes to optimal decision-making.     

How bodies and voices interact in early emotion perception

Successful social communication draws strongly on the correct interpretation of others' body and vocal expressions. Both can provide emotional information and often occur simultaneously. Yet their interplay has hardly been studied. Using electroencephalography, we investigated the temporal development underlying their neural interaction in auditory and visual perception. In particular, we tested whether this interaction qualifies as true integration following multisensory integration principles such as inverse effectiveness. Emotional vocalizations were embedded in either low or high levels of noise and presented with or without video clips of matching emotional body expressions. In both, high and low noise conditions, a reduction in auditory N100 amplitude was observed for audiovisual stimuli. However, only under high noise, the N100 peaked earlier in the audiovisual than the auditory condition, suggesting facilitatory effects as predicted by the inverse effectiveness principle. Similarly, we observed earlier N100 peaks in response to emotional compared to neutral audiovisual stimuli. This was not the case in the unimodal auditory condition. Furthermore, suppression of beta-band oscillations (15-25 Hz) primarily reflecting biological motion perception was modulated 200-400 ms after the vocalization. While larger differences in suppression between audiovisual and audio stimuli in high compared to low noise levels were found for emotional stimuli, no such difference was observed for neutral stimuli. This observation is in accordance with the inverse effectiveness principle and suggests a modulation of integration by emotional content. Overall, results show that ecologically valid, complex stimuli such as joined body and vocal expressions are effectively integrated very early in processing.