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The honest sound of physical effort

Acoustic correlates of physical effort are still poorly understood, even though effort is vocally communicated in a variety of contexts with crucial fitness consequences, including both confrontational and reproductive social interactions. In this study 33 lay participants spoke during a brief, but...

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Autor principal: Anikin, Andrey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10078454/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37033726
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14944
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author Anikin, Andrey
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description Acoustic correlates of physical effort are still poorly understood, even though effort is vocally communicated in a variety of contexts with crucial fitness consequences, including both confrontational and reproductive social interactions. In this study 33 lay participants spoke during a brief, but intense isometric hold (L-sit), first without any voice-related instructions, and then asked either to conceal their effort or to imitate it without actually performing the exercise. Listeners in two perceptual experiments then rated 383 recordings on perceived level of effort (n = 39 listeners) or categorized them as relaxed speech, actual effort, pretended effort, or concealed effort (n = 102 listeners). As expected, vocal effort increased compared to baseline, but the accompanying acoustic changes (increased loudness, pitch, and tense voice quality) were under voluntary control, so that they could be largely suppressed or imitated at will. In contrast, vocal tremor at approximately 10 Hz was most pronounced under actual load, and its experimental addition to relaxed baseline recordings created the impression of concealed effort. In sum, a brief episode of intense physical effort causes pronounced vocal changes, some of which are difficult to control. Listeners can thus estimate the true level of exertion, whether to judge the condition of their opponent in a fight or to monitor a partner’s investment into cooperative physical activities.
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spelling pubmed-100784542023-04-07 The honest sound of physical effort Anikin, Andrey PeerJ Animal Behavior Acoustic correlates of physical effort are still poorly understood, even though effort is vocally communicated in a variety of contexts with crucial fitness consequences, including both confrontational and reproductive social interactions. In this study 33 lay participants spoke during a brief, but intense isometric hold (L-sit), first without any voice-related instructions, and then asked either to conceal their effort or to imitate it without actually performing the exercise. Listeners in two perceptual experiments then rated 383 recordings on perceived level of effort (n = 39 listeners) or categorized them as relaxed speech, actual effort, pretended effort, or concealed effort (n = 102 listeners). As expected, vocal effort increased compared to baseline, but the accompanying acoustic changes (increased loudness, pitch, and tense voice quality) were under voluntary control, so that they could be largely suppressed or imitated at will. In contrast, vocal tremor at approximately 10 Hz was most pronounced under actual load, and its experimental addition to relaxed baseline recordings created the impression of concealed effort. In sum, a brief episode of intense physical effort causes pronounced vocal changes, some of which are difficult to control. Listeners can thus estimate the true level of exertion, whether to judge the condition of their opponent in a fight or to monitor a partner’s investment into cooperative physical activities. PeerJ Inc. 2023-04-03 /pmc/articles/PMC10078454/ /pubmed/37033726 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14944 Text en ©2023 Anikin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Anikin, Andrey
The honest sound of physical effort
title The honest sound of physical effort
title_full The honest sound of physical effort
title_fullStr The honest sound of physical effort
title_full_unstemmed The honest sound of physical effort
title_short The honest sound of physical effort
title_sort honest sound of physical effort
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10078454/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37033726
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14944
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