Whether leaders are perceived as authoritarian or benevolent may depend in part on the frequency characteristics of their voices.
When a right-wing Italian politician named Umberto Bossi suffered a severe stroke in 2004, his speech became permanently impaired. Strangely, this change impacted Bossi's perception among his party's followers -- from appearing authoritarian to benevolent.
Now researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles think they know why. Probing the vocal presence of charisma across cultural divides, the scientists found speakers with a wide range of frequency variation in their voices were more likely to be perceived as dominant. They also found that speakers with a low fundamental rate of vocal fold vibration, called fundamental frequency or F0, are perceived as more dominant than speakers with a high fundamental frequency.
Charismatic voices are made up of two fundamental components, said Rosario Signorello: one biological and one based on language and culture. Signorello is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA's Bureau of Glottal Affairs who will be speaking on Thursday about his current research at the 168th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), which is being held October 27-31, 2014, at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown Hotel.
The Science of Charismatic Voices
from the text-to-speech-opportunity dept.
AnonTechie writes:
Whether leaders are perceived as authoritarian or benevolent may depend in part on the frequency characteristics of their voices.
When a right-wing Italian politician named Umberto Bossi suffered a severe stroke in 2004, his speech became permanently impaired. Strangely, this change impacted Bossi's perception among his party's followers -- from appearing authoritarian to benevolent.
Now researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles think they know why. Probing the vocal presence of charisma across cultural divides, the scientists found speakers with a wide range of frequency variation in their voices were more likely to be perceived as dominant. They also found that speakers with a low fundamental rate of vocal fold vibration, called fundamental frequency or F0, are perceived as more dominant than speakers with a high fundamental frequency.
Charismatic voices are made up of two fundamental components, said Rosario Signorello: one biological and one based on language and culture. Signorello is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA's Bureau of Glottal Affairs who will be speaking on Thursday about his current research at the 168th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), which is being held October 27-31, 2014, at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown Hotel.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/asoa-tso102314.php
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