posted
I was reading the book "Our Inner Ape" by Frans De Waal for my Human Origins class. It's a really interesting book that relates people to apes such as chimps and bonobos. I came across this passage, and I was really intrigued:
quote: Scientists used to consider the frequency band of 500 hertz and below in the human voice as meaningless noise, because when a voice is filtered, removing all higher frequencies, one hears nothing but a low-pitched hum. All words are lost. But then it was found that this low hum is an unconscious social instrument. It is different for each person, but in the course of a conversation, people tend to converge. They settle on a single hum, and it is always the lower status person who does the adjusting. This was first demonstrated in an analysis of the Larry King Live television show. The host, Larry King, would adjust his timbre to that of high-ranking guests, like Mike Wallace or Elizabeth Taylor. Low-ranking guests, on the other hand, would adjust their timbre to that of King. The clearest adjustment to King's voice, indicating lack of confidence, came from former Vice President Dan Quayle.
The same spectral analysis has been applied to televised debates between U.S. presidential candidates. In all either elections between 1960 and 2000 the popular vote matched the voice analysis: the majority of people voted for the candidate who held his own timbre rather than the one who adjusted. In some cases, the differences were extreme, such as between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. And only in 2000 did a candidate with a slightly subordinate voice patter, George W. Bush, get elected. But this was not really an exception to the rule because, as Democrats will relish pointing out, the popular vote actually went to the candidate with the dominant voice patter, Al Gore
I looked in the references section of the book, and the original article that I found was by Stanford Gregory and Timothy Gallagher entitled "Spectral Analysis of Candidates' Nonverbal Vocal Communication: Predicting U.S. Presidential Election Outcomes." If you Google it, it comes up, especially in the Google Scholar search.
What I really want to know, however, is if anyone can find any articles about how this applies to the current presidential race. I'm pretty sure that Obama has a more dominant voice, but I'd love some data on it. It makes sense, however, that subconscious vocal indicators tell the public if either presidential candidate is going to be a strong leader, which is key in the presidential race.
Edit: I just found another article that talks about which presidential candidate is more likely to win in terms of physical appearance and vocal style, if you will. Physical Characteristics of the Presidential Candidates
posted
Interesting. This is the first time I see this, but I think it's pretty obvious that some people will vote based on other things than the candidate's political program. We'd still have to filter out those who actually vote the program/party before we draw any conclusions about who people prefer in terms of nonverbal indicators. Let's put it this way: you can well be elected by 55% to 45% and still lose on nonverbal indicators if only 1% of your voters chose you for those indicators, while 10% of the other person's voters chose him for that. Not saying here that people vote more for those with less confidence reflected in their voice, but there are probably more factors than this (your link gives one of them) to consider. I think at best that conclusion is an anecdote, and I'd seriously hesitate to "predict" a president based on this.
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posted
No one can tell I'm not a US citizen and I win the election. All Hail President Anti_Maven! I wonder if there is any truth in the article, that underneath it all we are drawn to vote for someone based on our animal reaction to them rather than on a more cerebral analysis of issues.
If this is true, there are some interesting judgement calls over the years*. I wonder if this only holds true in the US and whether there are other factors that come into play once you step out of the western cultural paradigm.
* Mrs. Thatch - was a squeaky voiced endomorph. Hmmm, must have been rigged.
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posted
I think at least in some respects is subconscious. We're not really aware of the fact that we're choosing particular candidates for that reason, but it triggers an intrinsic emotional response to that candidate. I'm not saying that it's the only factor. As Corwin pointed out, the link I gave had other examples of factors that subconsciously influence voters. I just thought it was a really interesting study. The original article that I found was also published in 2002, so I don't know if there's been any further research in this area.
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quote:I'm pretty sure that Obama has a more dominant voice
quote: * Mrs. Thatch - was a squeaky voiced endomorph. Hmmm, must have been rigged.
I didn't get from the excerpted quote that the sound of a person's voice is the source of the dominance. What I understood is that the person who perceives him/herself to be of lower status subconsciously adjusts this "hum" to match the dominant person's.
So, to create a hypothetical encounter out of the above quotes, if powerful-voiced Obama felt himself lower in status to squeaky-voiced Mrs. Thatcher, he'd change his timbre to match hers. I doubt that this change is perceivable w/o the instrumentation used in the experiment.
ETA: Well, I guess it's perceivable on some level if our subconscious is able to make the adjustments. However, the same assumption of dominance (confidence?) would be signaled by other means than voice, which would also influence voters. So what I'm saying is that this particular study says to me that it's the perception of the individual as dominant (as signaled by voice timbre and other nonverbal cues) that influences the voter, rather than the sound of the voice to the conscious mind.
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