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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Want to sound like someone people can trust? This new software could help [sciencemag.org]

People can tell a lot by the sound of your voice—your mood, your hometown, and even whether you're a friend or an enemy. Now, a group of French researchers has figured out which vocal intonations make a person sound more trustworthy or competent, using a new computer program that can transform the pitch patterns of our voices.

First, the researchers built their own voice processing software, which they used to create hundreds of random intonations of a recording of the word "bonjour"—"hello" in French—by both male and female speakers. Then, they asked two groups of about 20 volunteers each to listen to about 700 pairs of recordings; they used their responses to reconstruct optimal pitch patterns for both trustworthiness and competence.

The team found that listeners clearly associated specific intonations with each social trait [pnas.org] [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1716090115] [DX [doi.org]], regardless of their own gender or that of the speaker, they reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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