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Men with deep voices may be more fertile, study finds
By Globe Staff
Men with deep voices may be better at more than just wooing women with gruff one liners. According to a study by researchers at Harvard University and other schools, a deep pitched voice can be a predictor of fertility.
The study, published online this week in the journal Biology Letters, examined the reproductive patterns of the Hadza, a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer tribe that lives much the same way that human beings did 200,000 years ago.
"We don't know the exact reason that these men with deeper voices have fathered more children," said Coren Apicella, a doctoral candidate in the anthropology department at Harvard, who helped lead the study. "It may be that they have increased access to mates, begin reproducing at an earlier age or their wives have shorter inter-birth intervals because they provide more food to them."
The study, also led by David Feinberg of McMaster University and Frank Marlowe of Florida State University, is the first to examine the correlation between voice pitch and child bearing success, according to a press release from Harvard.
The Hadza were chosen because they provide a window into the past, according to the researchers. The females gather berries and dig for wild plants. The males hunt animals and collect honey. Marriages are not arranged, so men and women choose their own spouses. The Hadza are monogamous, but extra-marital affairs are common, and the divorce rate is high.
For the study, the researchers collected voice recordings from 49 men and 52 women between the ages of 18 and 55. Participants provided the names of their children and were recorded speaking the Swahili word for "hello" into a microphone. The vocal recordings were analyzed for fundamental frequency.
The researchers found men with lower voice pitch fathered more children.
"It's possible that vocal dimorphism has evolved over thousands of years, partly due to mate selection," Apicella said in a statement. "Perhaps at one time, men and women’s voices were closer in pitch than they are today."
