Angry, old, male – and trustworthy? How expressive and person voice characteristics shape listener trust

This study examined how trustworthiness impressions depend on vocal expressive and person characteristics and how their dependence may be explained by acoustical profiles. Sentences spoken in a range of emotional and conversational expressions by 20 speakers differing in age and sex were presented to 80 age and sex matched listeners who rated speaker trustworthiness. Positive speaker valence but not arousal consistently predicted greater perceived trustworthiness. Additionally, voices from younger as compared with older and female as compared with male speakers were judged more trustworthy. Acoustic analysis highlighted several parameters as relevant for being perceived as trustworthy (i.e., accelerated tempo, low harmonic-to-noise ratio, more shimmer, low fundamental frequency, more jitter, large intensity range) and showed that effects partially overlapped with those for perceived speaker affect, age, but not sex. Specifically, a fast speech rate and a lower harmonic-to-noise ratio differentiated trustworthy from untrustworthy, positive from negative, and younger from older voices. Male and female voices differed in other ways. Together, these results show that a speaker’s expressive as well as person characteristics shape trustworthiness impressions and that their effect likely results from a combination of low-level perceptual and higher-order conceptual processes.