Why Deep-Voiced Men Get All The Ladies To Listen
Evolution has thrown women under the bus once again, it seems. Maybe it should change its name to evil-ution.
Apparently women remember objects that are presented to them more accurately when they are introduced by a deep male voice, as opposed to a higher-pitched male voice. The study, conducted by David Smith and colleagues from the U.K.'s University of Aberdeen, and published online in Springer's journal, Memory & Cognition, shows for the first time that a low masculine voice is important both in terms of "mate choice and the accuracy of women's memory."
Said Smith: "Our findings demonstrate that women's memory is enhanced with lower pitch male voices, compared with the less attractive raised pitch male voices. Our two experiments indicate for the first time that signals from the opposite-sex that are important for mate choice also affect the accuracy of women's memory."
Less attractive? David Smith must not have listened to Justin Timberlake's second solo album. At least not all the way through.
Dr. Kevin Allan, who supervised the research, said, "We think this is evidence that evolution has shaped women's ability to remember information associated with desirable men. Good memory for specific encounters with desirable men allows women to compare and evaluate men according to how they might behave in different relationship contexts, for example a long-term committed relationship versus a short-term uncommitted relationship. This would help women to pick a suitable partner, and that's a particularly important ability to have because the costs of poor mate-choice decisions can be severe."
But wait a sec... another study, from March 2011, has found that when choosing a partner, women believe that the lower a man's voice, the more likely he will cheat. Deep male voices indicate higher testosterone levels, which are "tied to adulterous behavior," according to the researchers (the same goes for higher female voices, except with estrogen levels). So, we like lower voices but we also think men with lower voices will cheat? Nature, you are one cruel momma.
What do you think about this study? Do you find men with lower voices more attractive?
Written by Natalie Gontcharova for YourTango.
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