title: Seven and up: individual differences in male voice fundamental frequency emerge before puberty and remain stable throughout adulthood.
abstract: Voice pitch (the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency,F0) varies considerably even among individuals of the same sex and age, communicating a host of socially and evolutionarily relevant information. However, due to the almost exclusive utilization of cross-sectional designs in previous studies, it remains unknown whether these individual differences in voice pitch emerge before, during or after sexual maturation, and whether voice pitch remains stable into adulthood. Here, we measured theF0 parameters of men who were recorded once every 7 years from age 7 to 56 as they participated in the British television documentaryUp Series. Linear mixed models revealed significant effects of age on allF0 parameters, whereinF0 mean, minimum, maximum and the standard deviation ofF0 showed sharp pubertal decreases between age 7 and 21, yet remained remarkably stable after age 28. Critically, men's pre-pubertalF0 at age 7 strongly predicted theirF0 at every subsequent adult age, explaining up to 64% of the variance in post-pubertalF0. This finding suggests that between-individual differences in voice pitch that are known to play an important role in men's reproductive success are in fact largely determined by age 7, and may therefore be linked to prenatal and/or pre-pubertal androgen exposure.
authors.affiliation: Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK; Equipe Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, ENES/Neuro-PSI CNRS UMR 9197, University of Lyon/Saint-Etienne, Saint-Etienne, France.
authors.forename: Meddy
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fouquet
authors.affiliation: Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group, School of Psychology , University of Sussex , Brighton , UK.
authors.forename: Katarzyna
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0992-2477
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pisanski
authors.affiliation: Equipe Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, ENES/Neuro-PSI CNRS UMR 9197 , University of Lyon/Saint-Etienne , Saint-Etienne , France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mathevon
authors.affiliation: Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group, School of Psychology , University of Sussex , Brighton , UK.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Reby
keywords: fundamental frequency; longitudinal study; non-verbal communication; pubertal; testosterone; voice pitch