Journal
BIOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 14, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0065
Keywords
voice pitch; fundamental frequency; baby cries; longitudinal study; gender
Categories
Funding
- Leverhulme Trust [RPG-2016-396]
- University Lyon Saint-Etienne
- Institut Universitaire de France
- European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant [655859]
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Voice pitch (fundamental frequency, F-0) is a key dimension of our voice that varies between sexes after puberty, and also among individuals of the same sex both before and after puberty. While a recent longitudinal study indicates that inter-individual differences in voice pitch remain stable in men during adulthood and may even be determined before puberty (Fouquet et al. 2016 R. Soc. open sci. 3, 160395. (doi: 10.1098/rsos.160395)), whether these differences emerge in infancy remains unknown. Here, using a longitudinal study design, we investigate the hypothesis that inter-individual differences in F-0 are already present in the cries of pre-verbal babies. While based on a small sample (n = 15), our results indicate that the F-0 of babies' cries at 4 months of age may predict the F-0 of their speech utterances at 5 years of age, explaining 41% of the inter-individual variance in voice pitch at that age in our sample. We also found that the right-hand ratio of the length of their index to ring finger (2D : 4D digit ratio), which has been proposed to constitute an index of prenatal testosterone exposure, was positively correlated with F-0 at both 4 months and 5 years of age. These findings suggest that a substantial proportion of between-individual differences in voice pitch, which convey important biosocial information about speakers, may partly originate in utero and thus already be present soon after birth.
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