ORCID
- Mila Mileva: 0000-0003-0537-9702
Abstract
When seeing a face or hearing a voice, perceivers readily form first impressions of a person's characteristics—are they trustworthy, do they seem aggressive? One of the key claims about trait impressions from faces and voices alike is that these impressions are formed rapidly. For faces, studies have systematically mapped this rapid time course of trait impressions, finding that they are well formed and stable after approximately 100 ms of exposure. For voices, however, no systematic investigation of the time course of trait perception exists. In the current study, listeners provided trait judgments (attractiveness, dominance, trustworthiness) based on recordings of 100 voices that lasted either 50, 100, 200, 400, or 800 ms. Based on measures of intra- and interrater agreement as well as correlations of mean ratings for different exposure conditions, we find that trait perception from voices is indeed rapid. Unlike faces, however, trait impressions from voices require longer exposure to develop and stabilize although they are still formed by 400 ms. Furthermore, differences in the time course of trait perception from voices emerge across traits and voice gender: The formation of impressions of attractiveness and dominance required less exposure when based on male voices, whereas impressions of trustworthiness evolved over a more gradual time course for male and female voices alike. These findings not only provide the first estimate of the time course of the formation of voice trait impressions, but they also have implications for voice perception models where voices are regarded as “auditory faces.”
DOI Link
Publication Date
2023-02-06
Publication Title
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Volume
52
Issue
6
ISSN
0096-3445
Acceptance Date
2022-10-11
Deposit Date
2022-10-17
Embargo Period
2023-02-14
Funding
The research leading to these results has received funding from a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (PF20\100034) awarded to Mila Mileva and a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship (220448/Z/20/Z) awarded to Nadine Lavan
Keywords
first impressions, time course, voice, trustworthiness, dominance, attractiveness, gating task
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Mileva, M., & Lavan, N. (2023) 'Trait impressions from voices are formed rapidly within 400ms of exposure', Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 52(6). Available at: 10.1037/xge0001325
