Latest / The XX Lab / 7 Surprising Things Your Voice Reveals About You with Dr. Greg Bryant | #14
Transcript
- speaker-0: What we can learn about people just by the sound of their voice. speaker-1: Their sex, their age, their health, their emotional state, their native language. speaker-0: You said health, like can you can tell when somebody is sick or healthy? Sure. Welcome to the XX Lab, where we explore the science and stories that matter to you. Dr. Greg Bryant, welcome to the XX Lab. speaker-1: Hi, thank you. speaker-0: I'm so excited to have you here today because your work has ⁓ it's it's been some of the most fun work that I've interacted with ⁓ in the last ten to fifteen years. And I'm just really excited to ⁓ have listeners learn about some of the cool things ⁓ that we can learn from you and your work. So I wanna start by just talking about, you know, what we can learn about people. ⁓ or even groups of people just by the sound of their voice. ⁓ because when we hear somebody's voice, ⁓ even just for a few seconds, I think that, you know, we think that we're just mostly paying attention to what they're saying, but there's a lot of research, ⁓ a lot of which comes from your lab that says that we actually extract a lot more information from what people are saying, ⁓ that falls completely outside of what they're actually saying. So, like what can we learn about people just by The sound of what they're saying. Right. speaker-1: Well it d it actually you said a few seconds, it's even less time than that, I think. ⁓ I think if you you could just hear a person make a vowel sound for one second, you could you know their sex, you know ⁓ their age. I mean these are you're estimating, but you can kind of get a pretty good idea of well you know pretty clearly ⁓ if they're male or female, ⁓ you would know about how old they are, you would have some idea about their health. and that's just from like a vowel sound, but if you're hearing somebody speak, then you're hearing ⁓ you know, you can get a pretty good idea of what you know, what is their native language. ⁓ you can you can get an idea about their emotional state, their intentions, you can probably get a clue about ⁓ what kind of person they're talking to. ⁓ and then it can get more complicated and it interacts with words where ⁓ where when you're listening to the words being spoken and you have some contextual information, then you can get really rich social information out of the voice. And it's not clear how how we integrate the information across, you know, f between context and language and voices to get these rich representations of people. ⁓ but we know that the voice by itself is giving a lot of information. speaker-0: So you said health, like can you can tell when somebody is sick or healthy or like or is it speaker-1: Well, the obvious thing is ⁓ you know, you can tell if somebody has a cold, for example. But you can either even tell other kinds of more you can't tell things like d does a person have a certain kind of disease like cancer or something, but you c you can tell if ⁓ you have any kind of respiratory issues or you have other things that are making you sound ⁓ sort of weak. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. You can tell strength, physical strength in general. And that's ⁓ you know, there are ways to infer health, and then there's also direct evidence of of illness. But like right now getting over a cold, you might be you could probably tell that if you listen closely. speaker-0: Yeah, I actually was gonna ask you if you had allergies, ⁓ because from the sound of your voice. speaker-1: I got a cold in Morocco. speaker-0: ⁓ no, ⁓ no. speaker-1: Or coming home or something, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, lingering. speaker-1: You can hear that, you know, you can hear that in when people are talking. And so, but yeah, there's there's studies showing ⁓ that you can hear you the there's very subtle ⁓ little ⁓ cues that are essentially like noisy perturbations, like there's little ⁓ you know vibratory ⁓ actions in the vocal tract that reveal something about ⁓ how healthy you are at any given time. speaker-0: It it would be really interesting. Do you know has anybody looked at like d done like an approach avoid type of a paradigm where if you hear the sound that's related to illness or a sound that's not related to illness and then looking at the amount of time like whether people want to push themselves away from that vocal cue, like whether we're actually using it, you know, to make d decisions about how speaker-1: Well yeah that's that that would be cool. I mean that I think it's probably a subtle effect, but that could work. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, so interesting. And ⁓ is so from an evolutionary perspective, I mean, I guess with illness, right, we can think of like why it would make sense, right? If you can pick up on cues, you know, vocal cues related to illness that ⁓ that might like I just predicted, right, make you want to stay away from somebody who's got signs related to illness or like pull close people ⁓ who aren't like Like is there like d does this just serve like myriad social functions? I mean, in terms of just like helping us paint a larger picture of the types of threats and opportunities that other people might provide us ⁓ when we're interacting with them. Is that sort of the believed evolutionary function of all this? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean I wouldn't call it an evolutionary function exactly. I would call it a cue that because we're not signaling to other people that we're sick, right? Like when a baby is crying and it's not healthy, it's not signaling to the caregivers, I'm not healthy right now, right? Because that's that might cause them to invest less. And also you don't want to signal to somebody you're ill because then that might cause them to retreat. But there's it's sort of an unavoidable consequence of the way the vocal physiology works that you reveal that information. So where I expect the adaptation to ⁓ be is in the receivers. So people are are picking up information that is revealed in the voice and then they might act accordingly. So the function is really on the receiver side to then act adaptively towards the target, but it's not on the sender side. speaker-0: And so ⁓ can you explain to listeners the dis the distinction between a cue and a signal? Because I think this is such a fa this is such an important topic in the evolutionary sciences. And it's something that a lot of people don't appreciate. And I think that it's a really I think it's a cool thing. So yeah, tell us about that. speaker-1: So ⁓ it's w it's one of these ⁓ examples where you have to have an evolutionary perspective to properly understand communication in voices or communication in general, in my opinion. ⁓ so a cue is ⁓ some kind of ⁓ correlation with a state of the world. ⁓ and it could be a behavioral a pattern or it could be something like a a vocal cue or it could be s you know a visual thing, ⁓ anything that that is correlated with the state of the world. ⁓ and usually it's a byproduct of some other system. speaker-0: Right. So so your voice, for example, right, because you've got this cold from ⁓ your recent trip to Morocco and so so that that is a cue, right, where it's just like correlated with the fact that you're ill and so your voice sounds a little bit different. speaker-1: Yeah, so there's the physiology associated with how your body fights an infection, causes ⁓ certain ⁓ reactions that then ha have an effect on my voice because it's congestion in my head and other things. ⁓ right, and so a signal on the other hand is an adaptation where it's a trait that's been selected to ⁓ change the behavior of another organism. And it is in when you talk about a communicative signal, right? So it's ⁓ there's been selection to act on receivers, and then receivers have a complementary adaptation to be affected by the signal. And so there generally, I mean there's very few exceptions, but there has to be mutual benefit for seat senders and receivers in order for that signaling system to evolve. And so you know, an example would be the I mean, going back to infant directed speech, ⁓ there might be a certain kind of way that I'll speak. To an infant that causes the infant to act in a way that that I intend them to act, and it's in their interest. So if a baby is moving towards a fire, and then I make a really loud prohibitive go, no, you know, and that interrupts their behavior. it's in their interest to be affected by the signal, and it's in my interest for them to be affected by the signal. And so that signaling system evolves and it exploits, you know, the startle reflex, and you know. Babies pay attention when caregivers raise their voice like that. now there could be aspects of the way I do it that are not part of the signal design, but are byproducts. And so sometimes it it's tricky to separate the byproducts from the cues, but I mean the byproducts from the signals. But generally speaking, signals are adaptations that mutually benefit senders and receivers, and cues are any information that can be used by receivers to gather information about the world. speaker-0: Got it. So Q is like, ⁓ it's just something is correlated with something else. So again, like your your your raspy voice is correlated with ⁓ having this cold virus. And so ⁓ I can pick up on that, right? It's not benefiting you that I pick up on this. Right. So yeah, yeah, but it's benefiting me, right? But it could like we could do something where this could turn into a signal. So for example, let's say that I want my husband to bring me soup. and and rub my feet because I'm not I can be like, ⁓ right. And then the vocalization of right, it's like a signal. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So then I'm like trying to signal right that like I'm intentionally trying to exploit this. speaker-1: There is one complication there though, that ⁓ it's easy to confuse signaling with intent. So it's true that people will intend to do things and they act in certain ways, but the signal it can be more strictly defined as an adaptation. So I wouldn't say that playing up sickness is an adaptation, right? That's a strategy because you have ⁓ you have control over your voice and voice modulation is a really interesting topic of ⁓ because it involves we have two vocal systems, which we'll we can talk about that later. But ⁓ so you're using your ability to modulate your voice to then strategically get what you want. And so there's an adaptation in there and your ability to strategically change your voice. But the it it's different than a than an evolved signal, which is basically a ⁓ It's a trait that has been selected by evolution to achieve some kind of function. So it there's some subtle distinctions there. It's not just that you intend to do it and that makes it a signal. speaker-0: Okay, got it. Okay, got it. So yeah, we don't need to get we don't need to get too deeply in the weeds on that, right? But but I I it's so I I I appreciate this though. So Q like a Q is just, you know, something that's correlated with the state. And then a signal is I'm especially if we're talking about like evolutionarily, it's like ⁓ there's an adaptation like there's a beneficial ⁓ aspect of to the both the signaler and the receiver. Do I understand that? Okay, excellent. Okay, so Ultimate like so before we get into some of the the research on ⁓ on on signaling and cueing ⁓ and the types of ⁓ the types of ⁓ cues and signals that ⁓ voices provide, I'm just really curious what got you into this area of research. Like what like what made you really it begin to get interested in what is being communicated by the sound of people's voices or or the sounds of groups of voices? speaker-1: So ⁓ I'm a musician and I think that's the core ⁓ thing that got me into the sound and communication. So I've always been into music and then I started playing music and ⁓ I became interested in how music was related to language and how they interacted. And so I did my ⁓ undergraduate work at San Francisco State in psychology and I took a psycholinguistics class there and then I wrote a paper on language and music, the relationships between them. And that just sent me down the road, basically. It was that paper that I just discovered this literature ⁓ that connected ⁓ prosody, which is the the melodies of speech, to ⁓ music structure and emotions and music in particular. And ⁓ I wrote this paper and then I kept working on it after the class was over and ⁓ and I eventually presented it at a conference. My first talk I ever gave was a Triple A S and ⁓ which is science, you know, they it's amazingly well it used to be really amazingly easy for undergrads to give talks at triple A S. Not sure if that's true anymore, but ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ wow. speaker-1: I submitted a thing and they took it. So ⁓ and it was just a theoretical paper like that was ⁓ talking about the connections between these things. I didn't have data at the time. And ⁓ I realized that I was really interested in this and that this could sh this could be my job. Just studying this kind of stuff. And so that sort of set me on my course of just l looking at at speech and language. And then I started my PhD at Santa Cruz a couple years later, ⁓ working with ⁓ Jean Foxtree who studies spontaneous speech and which so she's interested in just natural speech, the way people talk, ⁓ as opposed to using actors or linguistic corporate or whatever. She wanted she was really interested in that in spontaneous speech. And so but she wasn't into evolution. but so that's we kind of like started working on projects looking at spontaneous speech and and that was an important component of my training. And so yeah, most of my work is tied to those things. speaker-0: That's yeah, that's so interesting. I think that ⁓ I think that ⁓ I know a lot of people who are musicians who ended up in ⁓ psychology for one reason or another, either because they're interested in communication or the way that that the brain processes you know, speech and and communication and and sound generally. ⁓ so some of the one of the areas of research that I want to talk about first that you've done that I think is so cool is ⁓ some of the very the very first speech we ever hear. And that is mother ease. ⁓ and I think that listeners will be very ⁓ surprised and and but also kind of nod at this general idea that people change the way that they talk when they're talking to babies. And that this isn't just something that we do here in the US. This is actually something that happens everywhere. So I'm wondering, can you tell us a little bit what is motherese? Like what why why why do we do this? And does everybody do this? speaker-1: Yeah. So the question of whether everybody does it has I think been pretty much resolved. And it used to be a little contentious c because people made claims that in certain societies people didn't use infant directed speech or mother-ese. And ⁓ it turns out there is a lot of variation in how much people talk to babies. So in some places it's true, people just don't talk to babies very much at all. And so if you're not talking to the baby, then you're not using infant directed speech. But when they do talk to babies, they do it in a very similar way around the world. So And in the US in particular, probably ⁓ is we do it more than anywhere else in the world. ⁓ there's there's various evidence for that. Nobody's tested that directly, but it's pretty clear that's what's going on. More exaggerated acoustic features and a lot more talking to to babies and to animals, I think too. speaker-0: What what are the ⁓ what are the features? What like really quickly, like what are what are the features that ⁓ like how do we know that this is infant directed speech? What is it like what makes it different? speaker-1: Yeah, so generally infrarirected speech is ⁓ slower, ⁓ often higher pitched, though it depends on the intention that you're communicating, but it's generally higher pitched and higher pitch variability. Those are the three things that are most robust across cultures. So you kind of ⁓ it you get this kind of gentle and ⁓ high pitched and kind of playful kind of sound, right? And and so the the functions of it vary over time. I think in the in the very early stages of development, it's usually for emotional communication. So you sort of ⁓ caregivers want to make their their intentions very clear emotionally. So if you want to soothe the baby then you get it you have extra efforts to be very soothing in your voice to get to get to downregulate their emotions. If you want to encourage behavior, then you have more excited, ⁓ you know, higher pitched and pitched rises that ⁓ that encourage behavior. Prohibitives, like I mentioned before, are gonna be lower pitched and loud and abrupt. ⁓ and those interrupt behavior in ways that ⁓ you know facilitate that intent. So The intentions make a a difference on how the the infant directed speech sounds, but generally the the it's just acoustic features that are exaggerated from the adult directed versions of those features. And it's something that babies are particularly attuned to. So they like to hear infant directed speech. And that there seems to be an adaptation, a perceptual adaptation in babies to attend to that. Even in a language that that they've never heard before over the language they have heard, they prefer the infant directed speech. ⁓ And there's evidence that when they when they hear inform directed speech, even when they're you know, a day old, you know, and you can measure like a as the suckling reflex, they like the you can tell what they like by they suck more when they hear it. And directed speech and lullabies are something that trigger that that perceptual sensitivity. So babies wanna hear this from the very beginning. speaker-0: That's so interesting. So you said that even ⁓ if babies are listening to a language that they don't are isn't their their native language, so it's not a language that they ever hear, that they're able to tell that it's like that it's directed toward them in some way that they prefer it. Yeah, that's just yeah, that's speaker-1: And they also prefer their own mother's voice. So ⁓ you know, those if those are put in competition, I'm not sure what would happen. ⁓ if they would they would probably prefer their mother's voice over anything, and then the then another female voice with infant directed speech would be pref preferred over a stranger, etc. You know, but yeah, they really like infant directed speech and they really like their mom. speaker-0: really funny and this is actually like one of the like the sweetest my moments and and this child of mine is now sixteen. I have a sixteen year old son and and I also have a a daughter but but my son when he was born ⁓ I'm amazing sixteen years yeah I know yeah and they I had this like really sweet moment right after he was born where they they whisked him away to get him all cleaned up and everything and ⁓ and then they wheeled me over to go see him afterward because they got me all cleaned up too. And ⁓ and so I went to get him and you know, and they're looking at his heart rate, and as soon as I started talking to him, his heart rate slowed down. speaker-1: Nice. That's really that's cool. speaker-0: Yeah, no, it was it was like really it was like this really sweet, ⁓ this really sweet moment and ⁓ and and it goes to show the power of that, right? 'Cause surely it you know, he's so little, he he just had heard the rhythm of my speech and recognized that that was my voice and and so booms are yeah, I know it's it it's so smart and so cool. And so do people use the same language with their pets, you said, is that correct? And do pets like it? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, so that's so interesting. So ⁓ and so one one of the things that I learned that I actually thought was really cool with with the research that you've done looking at ⁓ infant directed speech or mother ease, ⁓ was that it it was the study, it was one of these studies where you show or you had people ⁓ listening to a language that was not their language, right? So again, so the words are completely meaningless to people. And and it was looking at the difference between infant directed speech and then regular speech. But then also looking at different categories of speech, which I thought was so fascinating. So you were looking at ⁓ speech that functions ⁓ to try to prohibit a behavior, as you said, like if you're like stop or like drop that, ⁓ or something where you're approving of a behavior, where it's like, yes, continue, or ⁓ you know, or comforting behavior where you're trying to soothe ⁓ or get somebody's attention. ⁓ and that people were able to tell, even in a language that's not their own, ⁓ What the the speech is functioning to do just based on the acoustic features. speaker-1: Yep. Yeah. So that was work done with Clark Barrett and ⁓ Ecuador with the Schwar people. And so yeah, we played them English ⁓ in in these different intention categories is both infant directed and adult directed. ⁓ and they were the the infant direct the these were utterances produced by mothers ⁓ that were prompted with, you know, we would say spontaneously say what you would say in the situation where your kid is doing X, Y, or Z. and then we took these utterances that they produced and did simple acoustic analyses and showed That they were prototypical kind of infant-directed speech tokens, and then played them for SWAR people, and then had them in forced choice paradigm. We would say, you know, is this well, we had one experiment where we said, Can you just tell infant-directed from adult directed? They were really good at that. But then we also had ⁓ in a second experiment, we would just had them choose between two categories and where one of them was the correct answer of what you know what kind of category it was. And they were highly accurate. And then the errors they made were predictable based on the ⁓ overlap in the intention. So for example, ⁓ getting your attention overlaps with a prohibitive, right? 'Cause part of the prohibitive is you get the infant's attention. And so they would mistake those two, whereas they wouldn't mistake prohibitive from approval. Right. So you can do a signal detection analysis and show the errors. And ⁓ the the errors are is as informative as the accurate responses, because then we could s we can explain why we can predict the errors. and so there's a form-function relationship between the acoustic features that people produce and then the intentions that they're trying to convey. And those kinds of things are clearly perceived by people who have never heard really heard English before and didn't understand any of the words. speaker-0: Yeah. So how much like if you had to like wait p place a wager on it, how much do you think of intention and ⁓ like the the intention with our communication is communicated through words versus like intonation? Like if you just had to like fifty fifty. speaker-1: Well, there's a famous kind of ⁓ estimate that is something like 75% or something, which happens to be a UCLA professor who did who made that little estimation like 50 years ago. I can't remember the guy's name. that is probably not correct, but I I think that the issue is ⁓ what kind of information? So ⁓ you know, language is clearly important and the words matter. So ⁓ certain things cannot be communicated without language, right? But In terms of intent, then I think it's a high proportion of the information is encoded in the voice for sure. And the face as well and body gesture. So nonverbal communication is huge. But obviously, words matter. If we all had to live a day without using any words and just our voices and faces, it would be a mess. So language matters. As much as I like to say that there's a lot of power in the voice and faces and stuff. ⁓ language is clearly important, but yeah, it's hard to really say what percent it depends on the on the situation, you know. In some cases it's probably one hundred percent. Everything you need to know is in the voice, words don't matter at all. And in other cases, everything's in the words and the voices doesn't really help. speaker-0: Yeah, I think with the emergency thing, ⁓ as you were saying, like I I think that it it's all about like, you know, like the stop and getting your attention. Like I think that that one is is sort of universal and I I remember super clear. Yeah, like when I was I was traveling, I don't even remember where I was traveling, but it was like I was about to step into traffic and get hit by a car and somebody yelled something and I knew that I needed to step out of the street 'cause I was looking the wrong way. I must have ⁓ I think I was in India because it was like the cars were going the wrong way and it was not in but I knew exactly what was happening and I had no idea what was being said. speaker-1: Yeah, right. speaker-0: Yeah. Which I think is so is so interesting. I wanna Yeah, it totally worked. I'm here for better and for worse. ⁓ so I wanna talk I wanna talk ⁓ something that you said when we were first talking was just about was about this idea that we can tell the difference, ⁓ we can tell lots of different things about people based on the sound of their speech. And I wanna focus, I wanna zoom in first a little bit on things that we can learn about men. ⁓ by the sound of their voice. And ⁓ and I think that, you know, w in in in your research, ⁓ s some of the areas that you've looked at are things like ⁓ voice loudness and voice depth. And I think that there's sort sort of a a tendency for people to believe, I I think that we all have like this implicit theory about what like a deep voice means. Right. Like that it means that it's like maybe higher testosterone. ⁓ so is that is that true? Like like tell us about speaker-1: Not running testosterone, but pubertal exposure. So so you know, during puberty, there the androgens kick in and there are androgen receptors on the vocal folds that cause growth. And so higher testosterone exposure during puberty will cause greater growth of the vocal folds, and that results in lower pitched voices. But it doesn't seem to be a relationship between running testosterone as an adult and your your voice pitch. speaker-0: So ⁓ that's so interesting. So it's like developmental exposure during puberty, but not their free testosterone levels. So is this so would this be the same thing like with ⁓ the 2D40 finger ratio, right? Are you aware of that recently? Right, where where you find that like you can have a more masculinized or more feminized digit ratios? And so we might find that it's correlated, the the lower male voices are correlated ⁓ with having a more masculinized. speaker-1: They've made so many amazing correlations, most of them are probably not real, ⁓ between two D, four D and like where you sit in the orchestra and I mean all kinds of crazy stuff where ⁓ I I think the relationship with voices is much simpler. but yeah, yeah, it's it's basically an index of testosterone exposure during puberty. Yeah. speaker-0: Okay, so so male d male ⁓ vocal qualities like if we're talking about ⁓ loudness and depth. ⁓ what what kinds of i is are these cues or are these signals? Like what like speaker-1: Right, that's a good question. voice pitch is ⁓ clearly a signal and I think it but it's a signal of being male. speaker-0: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I guess right ⁓ okay. So so ⁓ so there's not any relationship like within men of like the depth of the male voice and anything that is important for a romantic partner or ⁓ coalitional ally to know. speaker-1: Maybe. No, I mean the this is an ongoing debate a little bit and ⁓ you know, David puts and I debate this. He thinks that they're I mean, there is there's some evidence. I'm actually on a paper coming up that's gonna show this, even though I I dispute some of it. showing that there is some relationship between voice pitch and and physical strength. ⁓ I've never been able to show that. Most people have not been able to show that, but David has shown ⁓ that it's it's it's a very small effect. ⁓ Kasha Pazanski did a ⁓ minute analysis looking at pitch and formants, which is another aspect of the voice that correlates with Body size. And there's really very little evidence that voice pitch, if if there's an effect is small, the voice pitch is related to physical strength. The the common belief is that lower pitch guys are going to be stronger, right? That's just what people think. And ⁓ the fact that they think that is interesting and has effects. So low pitch voices are associated with dominance and ⁓ political ⁓ decisions and ⁓ They it's the attractiveness ratings and all kinds of things. But which is interesting perceptually, but I think the r only real relationship ⁓ is that low p low pitch is associated with testosterone exposure, thus you that you're ⁓ likely a male. speaker-0: You had said that ⁓ that lower male pitched voice is related to social dominance and and s what was it political? speaker-1: Yeah, like if you pit two men in a in a ⁓ political decision, people tend to pick the low pitch voiced man in in like an election. speaker-0: So so is this like on the on the receiver, like the perceiver side? Is it so on the perceiver side, so I hear a low male voice and I think that he's higher in social dominance and that he's, you know, more politically astute. ⁓ but he's not necessarily more politically astute or more socially dominant. This is just all on my perception. speaker-1: I mean, perception can cause the effect in a way, right? So there could be social dominance effects because people perceive it that way, but it's not totally clear why they would do that. And ⁓ it could be an artifact of those kinds of experimental paradigms and that in real life situations that's not really something that you use. I mean, because it's if it's not really correlated with that, then people shouldn't really be using that as ⁓ a source of information about that dimension. now and as far as strength, th that I think what you you were alluding to the loudness thing. And so ⁓ in my work and some other work, ⁓ what we've found is that the the one acoustic feature that actually correlates with physical strength is loudness. And it makes sense if you think about, you know, i you're a guy and you decide you want to get stronger, you have your voice, and then you decide I'm gonna get strong, and then you lift weights for a year. And then you get physically stronger, your voice doesn't change. Right in pitch. But what it does do is allows you to force air out of your chest at a greater rate, and then that makes your voice louder. So you can yell louder when you get stronger, but you're not your pitch is the same. And so loudness is makes sense as being something that would correlate with physical strength. And so we've shown this that that the louder somebody can yell, the stronger they are. That's actually correlated. And ⁓ and then the thing that is most effective for conveying strength is to be able to make your voice loud and keep it low pitch at the same time. Because when you do increase the loudness of your voice, you necessarily raise the pitch because that's one of the mechanisms of of pitch modulation is loudness. So if I start yelling, my voice goes up in pitch. But then I have to do other things to sort of try to ⁓ you know, to counteract the effect of my pitch going up when I yell. So I gotta keep it low at the same time. And that seems to have the most strongest effect on people's judgments of strength is low and loud. speaker-0: Low and loud. It's really interesting because I, you know, I was thinking about it and thinking about the fact that, you know, from I I'm thinking about a mate choice perspective because ⁓ you know, I studied mating for so long that ⁓ that I can't not think about that. And I think about like if a woman perceives a deep male voice as having all of these qualities related to social dominance and whatever, even if they're not true, ultimately it's like creating this picture of this desirable person. Right, who presumably has good genes, right? Because if you're having high exposure to testosterone during development, that suggests that your body is allowing that to happen, despite the fact that testosterone has an immunosuppressive effect. And so if your body is allowing to you know, testosterone to continue to be released at high levels throughout development in a way that leads to the thickening of the vocal cords. ⁓ that even though women's belief like even though the link between the deep male voice ⁓ it is not actually linked with actual strength. I mean, but sometimes it is, as your paper will show and and as David's work David puts his work as sometimes right, the small effect. ⁓ but that but that it may essentially like create this vision that essentially leads women to pursue men with good genes, right? Even though they're the the beliefs that they have aren't necessarily instantiated in reality. speaker-1: Immunocompetence idea, I the jury's still out empirically, but I mean I've always thought that was that made sense. ⁓ and so that you you can tolerate high levels of testosterone is giving information about how ⁓ healthy you are. And so that could be a reason that that women pay attention to that dimension. So it could be a signal not only of maleness, but of your ⁓ your immune. capability. So I think that's a a a pretty good way to go. Actually with this paper with David that we have coming out is making that case and we there's hormonal analyses and and so I think there the evidence is coming in, but I think one question is to what extent is high testosterone actually bad for you? And I think that's where there's a little gap in the research where it's there's not a lot of ep evidence for that exactly. I do know that the high testosterone is bad for males in certain ways, like it causes them to do stupid things. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Well, so we so we actually have some work published ⁓ where we find and and other people in immunology labs, because we did this ⁓ in some ⁓ we did a psycho neuroimmunology type project where we were looking at ⁓ mating related trade-offs between testosterone and ⁓ inimmune function. And you do see ⁓ a negative relationship between those two things. And so like higher levels of testosterone are related to ⁓ less ⁓ proliferation and response to ⁓ bacterial threat and that sort of thing with white blood cells. And so which which does suggest that especially, you know, if you during development, if your body is willing and able to make that trade-off where it's like, I'm still gonna go ahead and release lots of testosterone because we've got this, you know, with the immune challenges, like I don't need to worry about getting sick because my immune genes are so thrifty that I got this. ⁓ and you know you could see that that that could be a a nice, you know, ⁓ cue. and and signal ⁓ of of potential genetic quality, which then, you know, in the mind of of women, because of course our brains don't think that way. They don't think like, ⁓ good genes. Instead it's just like, wow, that guy's socially dominant and all these other things. It might not even be true, but ultimately it's still leading you to like a, you know, a guy who's ⁓ going to be like a quote unquote good mate. speaker-1: And I I would call it a signal. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, I would call that a signal too, right? 'Cause everybody b I mean, you benefit from that, right? They're select. Yeah. Yeah. And so, ⁓ but with loudness now, does that ⁓ does loudness like in addition to potentially, you know, signaling something to a potential mate, is that one of these things where it will also signal to arrival? So like if a man is speaking loudly, ⁓ do people perceive him as being more scary and ⁓ socially dominant? speaker-1: You know, nobody's really looked at that exactly. ⁓ that's definitely something on the menu for things to start looking at, you know, how a loud voice would affect somebody's judgment. And I think one thing that's important is not just absolute loudness, but you can infer how loud a person might be able to go by hearing their voice in a normal interaction. So and this is something I've been planning to look at ⁓ more with pitch as well. At any given time I think we can judge where somebody is in their range of pitch and loudness. So if I start raising my voice and it it seems like I'm getting towards my peak loudness and it's not that loud, then you might make a judgment of how strong I am, even though I haven't yelled as loud as I can yell. ⁓ and then you can also you can see how much my pitch goes up ⁓ as a function of the loudness. And I think people can make judgments about that as well in terms of where you are in your range. And ⁓ so I think that could be important. But it for communicating formidability, ⁓ loudness is definitely playing a role. And people ⁓ make judgments about formidability and and fighting ability and things like that based on loudness. speaker-0: It's funny because ⁓ some my husband is a ⁓ is a corporate lawyer and one of the things that greased the wheels when we were dating is I would hear him on the phone with, you know, clients and he's got that loud you know, like that loud like rrr rrr rrrr voice. And yeah, like authoritative voice and and it that kinda like sealed the deal. It was just like I was so at I was so attracted to that, you know, and I and I think that there's I think that there's a a thing, you know, in the in the female Brain where it's like, wow like speaker-1: It's adaptive to ⁓ be able to control social situations and the voice is one of the mechanisms we do that. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, do men ⁓ strategically modulate their voice in competitive situations on like to sound tougher than they are? Or might they even do like do the opposite if they don't want to have their ass kicked? Like did men lower their voices to try to stay safe if they're in a situation? They're speaker-1: There's not a I actually have some unpublished work on this, but there's other there there's a few studies out there that show both what you just said. So ⁓ People will lower their voice when they're faced with a a a competitor who is large and potentially formidable. ⁓ if if they think they might be a competitor, then peop they do this competition, which is like an animal signaling dynamic we see all all over the place. You know, you have two red deer meet and then they start vocalizing to each other with their roars. And then eventually one of them decides well, not every time, but ⁓ usually one of them decides, Okay, I can't take you, and then they they it de-escalates. ⁓ but if they both think they can handle it, then you get a physical conflict. But the signaling is designed to avoid the physical conflict, right? That's not really great for anybody. And I think there's a similar thing going on with voices where if men are faced in a situation where they know they can't take the competitor, then they will defer and raise the pitch of their voice and then become submissive. You know speaker-0: That's I Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting because even when you just said that, yeah, your voice ⁓ went up a little bit. Right. That's so interesting. I've heard also, ⁓ and I think that it was at I was at a talk and I think it was like Franz DeWall or something. This was years ago, but he was talking about the research that they've done looking at matching somebody's ⁓ vocal like cadence. Right. Based on based on rank. And so like people who are lower in rank will tend to match their like the the sort of rhythm of the the s the more dominant speaker. ⁓ are you Yeah, and this isn't people. speaker-1: Yeah, in people, okay. Women, ⁓ their selection to sound feminine, right? And it it it gives evidence of what kind of hormonal exposure happened during puberty in women as well, in the same way. speaker-0: No, didn't it doesn't it also show some indication of hormonal changes that are happening across the menstrual cycle? speaker-1: Yeah, well, so I mean this is also an area where people have slightly different ⁓ views. But ⁓ my take is that ⁓ so Marty Hazleton and I have a paper showing that women tend to raise their pitch of their voice as a function of proximity to ovulation. So you know, during ovulation There's a s this is a very subtle, it's five hertz. It's I mean it's perceptible, but it's it's not much. ⁓ there's a a slight increase in pitch. And then ⁓ we actually have a new paper that is we're working on right now. ⁓ gonna hopefully submit it soon, ⁓ showing that it's That when you ask women to be attractive, they tend to do something like raise their pitch a little bit and slow down in particular, but it doesn't seem to be a function of ovulation. So we don't really get the same effect of the ovul of the cycling effect. And so I think that that the effect we showed is fickle. It's very clect sensitive. And it's evidence that that's a cue. It could be a potential cue to ovulation, but it's not a signal of fertility. And so some people have made the argument that that women are signaling fertility when they change their behavior across a cycle, but that doesn't really make sense. It's not to women's advantage to do that. It's clearly there's concealed ovulation. So ⁓ but that doesn't mean that there are physiological processes that are associated with the cycle that ⁓ are hard to mask. And so there are these subtle little things that can indicate where a woman is in her cycle that. speaker-0: So do you think so you don't think that ⁓ estrogen levels influence the voice at all? So you don't think Okay, yeah, okay, so so so so these are independent effects essentially. So on the one hand, ⁓ when estrogen is rising across the cycle, estrogen will influence vocal pitch, right? Raising vocal pitch ⁓ slightly. Okay, but not directly, but indirectly. speaker-1: Directly, I think. Yeah, so y what I mean is that it there's no particular physiological link that causes the voice to just like it has to go up. I think what it does is it alters motivational patterns in the behavior. And so women will then act differently as a function of their the hormonal effects on their motivation. So they walk differently, dress differently, speak differently. speaker-0: ⁓ it's It does it d is it harder to create a higher pitch than it is a lower pitch? Like d is it more effortful? speaker-1: All the cost there is probably serious. ⁓ no, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say it's harder. I mean to when you're in within your range, you can go up and down relatively easy. ⁓ it would be hard for women to be convincingly low-pitched because the physiology is just not there. ⁓ just like it's hard for men to be convincingly high-pitched because they have to really strain the vocal folds to get higher. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: though that's more possible than women going low because the vocal folds the thickness of them and the length determine the pitch and so you you're constrained by that. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. It's so yeah, it's so interesting because on the one hand, yes, it's definitely the case that, you know, women have concealed ovulation, right? Meaning that we don't have these, you know, this like we don't have a red ass or something like the like baboons do, like that that shows everybody like, hey, world, I'm ovulating. And and that's on purpose because it would present prevent females from being ⁓ the targets of sexual victimization during times when they're fertile and also prevent them from being ⁓ targeted by intersexual rivalries, right? Where where other women essentially just shove you in a closet once a month so that way you stay away from all the men and can't attract everybody ⁓ when when when you're fertile. And so so it it makes sense that that women wouldn't have this ⁓ wouldn't have this like over change that would happen ⁓ you know, that sort of signals like, hey, look at me, I'm fertile wouldn't wouldn't be helpful. ⁓ but I do think with the Q thing, I think it's interesting ⁓ to think 'cause and and I think I like your idea about Women's motivations change near ovulation. We know that when estrogen is high across the cycle, that women have more higher sexual desire, et cetera. And that as part of their desire to appear attractive, which you said now you have this new paper that's gonna be coming out, showing a relationship between those things. So when women want to appear attractive, that they ⁓ slow and high with the voice. Is that right? Yeah. And and so but but I'm gonna tell you. Yeah, so I've American women. I love it. So so I've got to tell you, like I heard from so one of my graduate students is ⁓ she was a ⁓ vocal performance major as an undergraduate. And ⁓ and she was told, ⁓ and this is very commonplace apparently in the world of vocal coaches, not to be on hormonal birth control because it lowers your voice. And ⁓ which to me suggests that there could also be something hormonal there. Do you know what I mean? Like, ⁓ because I guess it's true. Like, and we do know from a lot of research that when women women are using hormonal birth control and estrogen is flatlined, ⁓ that their sexual desire and sexual motivation also kind of goes by the wayside. ⁓ and so it could be strictly motivationally driven, right? Where women are like, you know, not really interested in sex and therefore they're not gonna do anything special with their voice to sound attractive. ⁓ but I yeah, I guess I had always thought that there had to have been something hormonal for that reason. ⁓ where there's actually a direct relationship in addition to maybe this indirect relationship. But but yeah, I don't know. speaker-1: I mean don't think there's a direct hormonal connection there and it I would I would attribute th those effects to motivation. ⁓ some of the earliest work on cycling and voices was not evolutionary and was really about ⁓ singers, like opera singers and stuff, and looking at you know, the role of not of they weren't really worried about fertility, but they're worried about menstruation. And so ⁓ you know, what kinds of effects ⁓ on voices does menstruation have? And then looking of the relationship between that and oral contraceptives and ⁓ but I I don't know any results that show oral contraceptives make the voice lower. speaker-0: Right. Okay. So yeah, so really interesting. Yeah, 'cause she had told me this and I was like, That's really fascinating. And she said that it's kind of, you know, a common thing in that area where they they tell women not to do this 'cause it changes your voice in a not so favorable way. And so yeah, which I th I thought was really fascinating and so I wanted your hot take on that. ⁓ speaker-1: There's other dimensions besides pitch. ⁓ in fact I think a lot of the early work were they was looking at spectral features so voice quality could change. And so ⁓ you know the opera singers need to have very smooth you know, the the the vocal folds are ⁓ mucous membrane, so the viscosity of the mucous membrane can affect voice quality and make it sound more or less rough. And so singers want to be less rough unless you're rock and roll. But so you know, opera singers want to have a very clear voice. And so there could be a relationship between the hormonal profile and ⁓ the viscosity of the mucous membrane that changes. speaker-0: ⁓ that's interesting. And is that then also what is responsible for age effects? Because one of the things that you had mentioned, yeah, is that you can tell somebody's age based on the sound of their voice. And that's spectral. And so and and so it has to do with the mucous membrane? speaker-1: That and I think ⁓ you know the the vocal folds ⁓ are not as elastic as they once were. So there's some stiffness, rigidity, and ⁓ there I think there are other effects about, you know, in the in the nasal cavity and other kinds of things that cause the voice to have slightly less phonation quality and so you end up with a vo you know, like that kind of voice, you know. ⁓ It and that's just introducing ⁓ noise and non-periodic ⁓ components. By non-periodic I mean things that don't have a tone. Right? So a perfect a perfect tone is like a clean wave and that's a periodic signal. And the voice contains a lot of periodic information, but when you add noise for various reasons, then you are having a higher proportion of non periodic sounds. And ⁓ when you have that at a really high level, that's when you ⁓ it indicates things like st illness or age or other things that could cause that. And so that's when you can hear people are older. speaker-0: So okay, so w women increase the pitch of their voice a little bit when they're trying to look attractive. Men can and and it works. Men find it more attractive. speaker-1: It le in the US for sure, and I think probably in a lot of other places as well, but it's not necessarily a universal. speaker-0: ⁓ that's so interesting. So that this one might not be a universal. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, the pitch effect. I mean, in terms of attractiveness. speaker-1: Pitch effect. Yeah, no, I mean I think it's pretty clear it's not universal, but I think it's pretty common. ⁓ but like I said, it's still w the women are still within a range that is typical feminine speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: vocal ranges. ⁓ there's no place where you know it sucks you to for women to talk like that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. But I think there could be there's another thing that I've always wanted to investigate. I haven't really into so many projects. and that is that breathiness is an important component of attractiveness as well. So and breathiness is another example of introducing these non-periodic elements into the voice where there a little air is is also detectable percep perceptibly. And that adds that kind of, you know, the difference between high and high, you know. And you can measure breathiness. And ⁓ I think that when something is perceived as higher breathiness, it also could be mistakenly taken as being lower pitched. And so ⁓ there's an interesting thing where if you introduce breathiness, then people tend to think that's more attractive as well. speaker-0: ⁓ that's really interesting. So if a woman wants to make herself more attractive to a mate, right? Breathy and a little bit higher. Yeah. And for men and for men, it's gonna be deeper and louder. speaker-1: Yeah, and maybe a little more variable in the fundamental frequency too. ⁓ not monotone, you know. So just have yeah, higher pitch, higher pitch variability, breathy, and slower. speaker-0: I love it. You know, so one of the things that ⁓ whenever ⁓ whenever I think of your work, I think about this phenomenon, ⁓ about the phone voice. And I don't know whether or not you know about the phone voice. Like like when I and this is I I don't do it as much now that I have a cell phone and I know who's calling, but like it used to be when I answer the phone like, hello, right? It was just like this high, like totally uncharacteristic voice. And I was talking to some friends of mine who were guys. So I at first noticed the fact that I had a phone voice when I was in college. ⁓ and I was like hanging and was hanging out with some guys and ⁓ and they're like, Yeah, no, we have that too. It's like, hello. ⁓ and so they have like this low, like, do we are we constantly like, is that a thing? So I'm I'm guessing it's a thing, right? Like I'm not the only person who does this, right? Who who like modulates their voice ⁓ when they're like answering the phone or having a unexpected encounter with somebody where they like try to doll up their voice. It's like essentially like like quick putting on makeup and like putting on some lipstick and, you know, answering the phone. ⁓ and like dolling up my voice in a little way or like in this in this other way. Like how much do you like how much do we do this as humans? speaker-1: we do it all the time in all kinds of different situations, right? I mean, when ⁓ the server approaches you at the table, hi, you know, kind of thing. Or ⁓ I mean the answering the phone is an interesting thing because that's not really a a ⁓ well as You're right. Now you kind of know who's calling or you don't answer. But ⁓ in the old days you just pick up the phone and then the way that you sort of open up that conversation is going to maybe set the stage for how the conversation goes and people have different styles of, you know, hello or speak or whatever people do. But ⁓ it it It's kind of a weird thing. I mean, if you think about it evolutionarily, there's there's never been in our ancestral past we didn't have introductory phrases before we knew who we were talking to. Right. So it's a it's a weird thing to think about. But I I think we modulate our voice in all sorts of ways that ⁓ are strategic socially and and really can set the stage for how an interaction will unfold. So we're doing it all the time. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, we do it, we do it all the time. And it's so fun ⁓ for those of you who are listening. Pay attention sometime. Just like pay attention to yourself and pay attention to other people because it really is like there's so much richness in like what our unconscious brain is doing when we're communicating with other people. It's like running all kinds of algorithms and doing all kinds of calculus to try to figure out how people are feeling and what their intention is. And then even in your own voice, you know, it's like the the phone voice. Like I that was just like a moment of self awareness where I was like, Why do I do like why do I do this? Why do I make this silly voice? speaker-1: My ⁓ ex-girlfriend, she used to tell me she knew who I was talking to just based on how I was talking, you know, like there's a certain group of friends I grew up with and went in high school and all of a sudden it goes into dude mode, you know, yay, dude, you know, where I would never talk that way to like my coworker or somebody else, you know, in that and so there's so many things you can infer based on I mean, dialect and style and attitude that's conveyed to the voice yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, and w and one of the things that ⁓ that I love ⁓ that that you've done some work on and this is a really great transition into it, is like you can actually learn about people's relationships with each other ⁓ just by the sound of their voice and even the sound of their laughter. ⁓ and that and that the way that ⁓ we modulate around those people around us like is providing so much rich social information. And so I wanna I wanna start, I want I want you to tell people about the work that you've done about Groups and like what we can tell about a group just simply by hearing them communicate. Like what what are some of the things that we can learn about the people in a group just by the sounds of their vocalizations? speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ so the w one study I think you're talking about is a cross-cultural study looking at whether people can tell friends versus strangers when they hear two people laughing in one second. ⁓ literally the the stimuli average about a second long. ⁓ shorter than that. And ⁓ you hear t and these are conversate from conversations I recorded in the lab where I knew if people knew each other or not. And these are established friends of of around three or four years on average versus people that had just met the moment before. before the recording. And then they just talk and then we extract the laughs out of those conversations. so I got all the laughs and I've done a bunch of stuff with them, but these are co-laughs. So it's when people laugh at the same time. ⁓ And so you can extract those and we do it systematically. We're not cherry picking. ⁓ just extract these collapses and then play them for listeners. And then it's just a simple forced choice. ⁓ are these people friends or strangers? And they are in fact either friends or strangers. There's and people around the world, everywhere we went, including hunter-gatherer cultures and ⁓ rural cultures all over the world, ⁓ could tell. ⁓ much better than chance whether people were friends or strangers just by hearing them laugh for two s one second. speaker-0: What why are we good at like why are we good at this? speaker-1: Well yeah, so if you think about ⁓ you know When people are in conversation, generally when friends are in conversation, they laugh more than strangers and they are more emotionally engaged. And so laughter becomes this sort of honest indicator of your relationship with other people. And it's really informative. So if you're in a group setting and you hear people laughing together and you want to kind of figure out the alliance structure of of ⁓ the group that you're in, then laughter, among other things, can be a really reliable cue that well it well I actually argue it's a it's a signal. ⁓ but for for our purposes right now we could just say it's a cue of relationship status when people are laughing together and there's there's ⁓ acoustic correlates that seem to be ⁓ revealing it it's really about arousal so you're when you're with familiar people and you're with friends the the arousal in your nonverbal vocalizations is greater and that has acoustic consequences that are highly detectable. And so it's basically the things that are different between friends laughing and strangers laughing are really just functions of arousal. speaker-0: ⁓ so the so it's ⁓ you have more arousal when you're with people you like, like your friends. Like and so you have higher okay, interesting. speaker-1: And it's pretty subtle. I mean, it's it's not like, you know, with friends you're like roaring laughter and strangers, you're just doing these little kind of polite laughs. ⁓ it's it's really ⁓ it's more subtle than that. I mean, those things are true that you know, you're more likely to have a real laughing fit with your friends. But at our stimuli, the these are they're they're pretty subtle, the differences, but people still pick up on ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, see I would think like that if you're around people you don't know very well, like that would make people feel more anxious. Like I feel like that would increase arousal more than being with your good friends. But no. speaker-1: It's a different kind of arousal, yeah. So ⁓ I think it doesn't result in sort of emotional ⁓ vocalizations in the same way. speaker-0: Right, right. So how many how many different types of laughs are there? Like is like I know there's a fake laugh, right? Like ha ha There's nervous laugh, right? There's the speaker-1: So I I have my my most recent paper on laughter is on this topic, actually. And ⁓ so the there's this question of laugh types. So the most basic ⁓ distinction that I make is that we have two vocal systems. We have an ancestral, evolutionarily conserved vocal emotion system we share with all mammals. It's a relatively simple circuit. So the same circuit that a squirrel uses when it screams at you is the same one we use when we scream. Right, it's evolutionarily conserved. But w humans have a speech production system which ha ⁓ is a different connection to the vocal apparatus from the motor area in the brain and ⁓ it allows us to ⁓ control articulators. So our tongue, our lips, and our vocal folds are under differential control with the speech system. And only one of those systems can actually be on at any given time. So if you're really laughing with the vocal emotion system, spontaneously laughing, you can't talk. Right. And there's I mean, there's a great genre on YouTube of newscasters who can't read the news because they get the giggles. You know, I love these. But You know, and similarly, like a child is crying so hard because something happened and they can't explain it because they can't control their voice. ⁓ so if you hear somebody laughing while they're talking, you know that that's laughter produced by this speech system, which we call volitional laughter. So that's the most basic two types of laughter are that are a function of which system is producing them. Beyond that, I think the evidence for for discrete types is there is bad. So what we have shown recently is that. ⁓ when you force people to make different kinds of laughter like nervous laughter, malicious laughter, or sarcastic, or amused, or whatever, that mostly what they're doing is are changing acoustic features that change the perceived valence. So it it can be positive and negative, but it kind of runs along a continuum of valence and that there's really no categorical. differences between these laughs. So people, if you say make a nervous laugh and then you have them, you have listeners judge whether this is nervous or ⁓ you know, other kinds, they're barely above chance. They can get it. And and ma and we can do ⁓ you know machine learning kind of techniques, classification ⁓ algorithms and They also can get it better than chance, but barely. And and a better a better description of the data is really that these things are running along a continuum. If you force choice them, they can kind of get it, but it's there's that's bad evidence for types. So I would say there's no laugh types. There are laugh continua on the dimension of valence and arousal, mostly a valence. That allows people to infer something about the intent of the laugher and it all works in context, but outside of the context, there's really not a lot of categorical differences between different laughs. That would be my basic story on that. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, th yeah, there's so much there. Like I I I think about ⁓ with laughter, like I I always think about whether or not there's some sort of a and and I think I I was talking to Jamie Krems about like about, you know, if you have a similar view of the world as someone else, like like you share a sort of a similar speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, shared reality that that you tend to laugh at the same things. Right. So it's like like you tend you're you're you find the same things funny as as these other people. And so I feel like it's also like I feel like ⁓ laughter is also kind of a vibe check on whether or not somebody yeah, like has your same thing. And I I've always found that like if there's a group of people, like if there's a group and I'm new to the group, ⁓ and I have a hard time laughing when they're all laughing. And Yeah, and and I and I'm thinking it's because I'm not I haven't picked up on the things yet. Like I like I d I don't I don't Yeah, I don't know. You you I I speaker-1: That we've kind of taken is ⁓ we encryption. There's an encryption theory of humor. This was developed by with Tom Flamson and Clark Barrett. And the idea is that ⁓ humor is a kind of encryption where I'm saying something where the thing that makes it funny is unstated. And that if you have the information, you recognize why something is funny, and then you'll laugh, which is a signal that you have that information, and then I can recognize that you get it. And timing is everything, right? So if you're a little late with the laugh. Then I can probably make the inference that you know something is supposed to be funny, but you don't know what it is, and then you try to laugh anyway. Whereas if you really get it, you laugh in the right time. ⁓ I think rhythm and time is so important and understudied. ⁓ and so that encryption idea really is that is ⁓ r goes along with what you just said, that if you're not in the inn and you don't really know what people are laughing about, then that reveals that you're not totally in the group. And that who is laughing and when can be ⁓ observed by a third party and then they can make jud they can figure out who knows each other and who doesn't by just very subtle differences in timing of laughter. Right. So if you somebody's just a little late on the laughter, then you're like, okay, they're different than these people on some dimension. speaker-0: But that's yeah, that's so fascinating. That's so fascinating. I ⁓ yeah, there's there's ⁓ probably a lot that people could infer about my inability to fit in in certain groups based on the way that speaker-1: I mean, that's just the human nature. I mean, that's the way it works, you know. ⁓ one thing I was gonna say about the laugh types is I think people speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: believe that that laugh sounds unique ⁓ for that type because they understand it in context. And so there's an illusion that the the the information's in the laughter when actually if you isolate it and do the empirical work, it's not there. And I think that's true for a lot of different kinds of signaling systems. So like you might if somebody says something nasty to you, that you might think they made a nasty face. But if you looked objectively, they didn't really make a face. Or you might think it sounded like the way you s I mean, this is like, you know, you have these kinds of arguments with partners, right? It's just like you said it and the way you I didn't like the way you said it. Yeah. speaker-0: It's what you said. It's yeah how you said it. speaker-1: But you you recognize my intention. And so then you think that the inf the the the the nastiness is in the voice, but it wasn't really. now sometimes it is, but I think we sometimes have this illusion that the information is in the medium when it's not. speaker-0: Right. So what can what are some things that we can do? Like based on all of the research that you've been doing for all these years and everything you've read and everything you've done yourself, what are some of the things that we can do to be better listeners and actually pick up on all the cues? speaker-1: Well, there's the classic thing of are you listening or are you preparing your next thing you're gonna say? Right. So you instead of preparing the next thing you're gonna say, you should just listen and stop. Right. ⁓ but yeah, I think in general it's better to just maybe talk less and listen more in general, right? I mean, ⁓ if if you slow down and just try to like pick up on on the different information that's available, then ⁓ Yeah, I think you'll have ⁓ a better understanding of your partner. You know, whoever might be a friend or or your your romantic partner, whatever. I think sometimes just shut up a little bit and listen is is powerful. ⁓ because I think people are all there's definitely a focus on when can you talk, right? And people are trying to like get the lat the get their word in and that disrupts their ability to really listen more deeply to what people are saying and how they're saying it. I guess that would be advice. speaker-0: Yeah, I was just I I what what I really what I really loved about our conversation is that you really did validate ⁓ so many women who say it's not what you said, it's how you said it. And now we can just like pull up your website with your giant list of publications and ⁓ and say Brian et al. you know speaker-1: Though I'm kind of saying that it's not how you said it, actually. But so it's a it's a tough one. I think there are cases where people say one thing. I mean, and this I studied sarcasm in the very beginning of my career, and it's like where you're your voice is contradicting the words. ⁓ but I mean this happens in non-sarcastic. things too, where it's just like, okay, I'll do that. And the way you say it is you don't want to do that or whatever. You know? And so that's definitely true. And that's that's it's sort of it can be a passive aggressive strategy where you on the surface you're agreeing, but in the but nonverbally you're not. So those things I think are totally legitimate and true. But there are other cases where I think If people hear the they they recognize the intention from the words and they think that it was in the nonverbal information and I'm saying sometimes it's not there, right? That ⁓ the way you laughed was, you know, you know, being sarcastic. You're like, actually, objectively the laugh wasn't sarcastic, but you recognize them being sarcastic, so you just think it was. So I think it depends, you know, it's complicated. speaker-0: How do you how do you tell the difference? speaker-1: I mean in a way you don't you can't unless you go back if you have a recording and objectively measure something, right? Which obviously you can't do that unless you're a psychopath. So you know, y y in a way you can't. There's no way to ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: There's no way to prove it one way or the other, in any case, without doing the empirical work. but in in a personal interaction, I think it's just that it kind of doesn't matter where it came from. If you detect the intention, then you gotta call people out on what they're intending. And if they don't want to admit it, then the conflict is there, not in like whether you said it that way or not. You know what I mean? speaker-0: Right, right. No, totally. What ⁓ is there anything now that because of the research that you do that you pay attention to in human conversation that you didn't before? speaker-1: Yeah, no, I've been asked that a lot. And I think I it's hard to imagine w the way I perceive conversations twenty-five years ago before I started doing this kind of work. ⁓ I'm sure it's different, but it's I f I feel like when I'm engaged in a conversation, I'm like any other person. I mean I'm just doing it as a natural behavior. Though I'd probably notice ⁓ little idiosyncratic features of people's voices and their behaviors more than the average person probably because I'm sensitive to those things. I definitely hear laughs now and I'm paying attention to laughter. Also when I'm not in the conversation, I'm I'm paying attention to the laughter around me quite often. I or in other kinds of behaviors. I mean certain voices pop out that are unique and I'll notice that. and I'll notice, you know, Loud laughter. I I li I enjoy listening to loud laughter at a distance, usually, unless I'm sometimes it can be annoying if it's right next to you. But you know, yeah, so I I think I do pay attention to the subtle acoustic things that are out there in the world, but in a conversation when I'm talking to you, I'm not like analyzing your voice and you know, is your pitch going up and you know, you know, how healthy are you right now? I'm I'm paying attention. I think we all do it unconsciously. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I think so too. I think that like our brain is like constantly running algorithms, right? To like figure out like where do we fit into this group and how's this conversation going and and what is my status relative to this person's status? And I think that it's like all of this stuff goes on totally without our paying any attention to it. We have no idea that we're doing it. And like I wouldn't be able to tell you. Like, you know, but like like I don't like I don't think that my my brain would like if even if I like I could speaker-1: Access to it. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, it's like it's but it's gonna influence the way that I interact with people and and sort of my assessments of yeah, formidability or like compatibility and and all of those kinds of things, which I think is is so is so fascinating. And like I said, folks, like I pay attention to it sometime with yourself and it really is it is really interesting. You can learn a lot about yourself and your own motivational states, I think. How can listeners ⁓ find more about you? Do they just Google you at Greg Bryant U C L A? speaker-1: Yep, exactly. That'll that'll take you to my page that has ⁓ most of my publications are are there and there's a link to my music site. So I released an album a little while ago and I'm gonna I'm gonna have upcoming musical releases. So I still do music and and I have an album, so you can go listen to my album on Spotify or an iTunes or whatever. It's under G Bryant, just G. And there's a link to my music page on my academic page at UCLA. speaker-0: Awesome. Yeah. So definitely. ⁓ and I'll put this on the show notes so everybody you can find his ⁓ find his website, also find the music. ⁓ and I just really appreciate your time. This was so much fun. speaker-1: Yeah, cool. No, thanks for inviting me. It was fun. speaker-0: Alright, great. Thanks. And that's it for today's episode of the XX Lab. If you want more, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're enjoying the show, a rating or review helps other people find it. See you next episode.