It is not the appearance or personality. A new study reveals that the element that carries the strongest sexual attraction is the voice.

Researchers in Canada say that we feel a physical attraction to a person who has a similar voice to ours as regards pronunciation, volume, and tone.

Previous studies have focused on how manly or feminine a voice is. Men with deep voices and women with thin voices were considered by far the most charming. However, new research demonstrates that the mechanisms behind these preferences are more complex.

Researchers of the University of British Columbia claim that “the voice is a versatile tool that people use to shape their identity.”

After a series of tests and experiments, it turned out that the main component of a person’s charm is the relevant characteristics of their voice. In other words, we are attracted to an individual who has the typical traits of a man or woman who belongs to the same community as us.

For women, the sensual voice like that of Marilyn Monroe is considered more attractive because it is intertwined with youth and good health. For men, the dominant feature of the charm was the deep voice.

The new study is published in peer-reviewed scientific PLOS One.

How does sexual attraction work in the brain?

What about the brain? What happens when we meet someone we are attracted to?

The medial prefrontal cortex seems to be “responsible” for the magnetism of love at first sight and, according to Irish scientists, plays a crucial role in our erotic choices.

Researchers from Trinity College in Dublin claim that different regions of the medial prefrontal cortex, located at the front of the brain, are responsible for our judgment based on sexual attraction, which within a few milliseconds can indicate the “ideal” partner.

Speed-dating in the name of science

151 single women and men took part in the study.

Before starting the experiment, 39 of the participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while being shown the images of people they were going to meet during the next phase of the experiment, and in consequence evaluated each of them with a rate from 1 to 4, with 4 corresponding to the “I really want to go out with him/her”.

To find out what really happens at first glance, in the next days the scientists organized a speed-dating evening where participants were moving in a circular room and talking to everyone for five minutes. After that, the experts asked the volunteers to indicate the person they would like to see again.

The results

As the results of the speed-dating evening showed, the volunteers had a very positive opinion about the people they liked by the picture. The researchers found that the primary interest of those who had undergone MRI towards those depicted in the pictures was 63% real during their face-to-face meeting.

The truth is that we laughed a lot during the study and hope someday to get a marriage invitation card, however, till now, we have not received anything,” jokingly says doctoral student in psychology and the study’s researcher Jeffrey Cooper.

During the “erotic judgment”, a particular region of the medial prefrontal cortex, called PCC (Paracingulate cortex), seemed to be triggered. According to the scientists, the intense activity recorded at this point is related to the sexual attraction we feel to someone and eventually defines our choice of a partner.


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This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Nicolae Donciu

    For the moment i am a bit cold and cant even speak to much but i do agree. So true! Regards to the one who write it! Nick

  2. tmraywood

    I for one have been an advocate of this principle for now decades. At least in my case, however, it’s not been so much a matter of timbre or inflection (or, I guess, what might be thought of as regional propensities toward this or that dialect) so much as outright content. A good example of this, based solely on personal experience, is how acutely the off switch gets thrown for me when I encounter the chattering teen. Visually she may have all the charms and trappings of, well, rather obvious appeal. But as soon as she commences to speak all bets are off. For the man who objectifies women this may not be the case at all, and certainly often is not. But for a male of my sort, the first sign of vacuousness has what I’ll deem an immediate and insurmountable negative impact as far as touches sexual attraction. The otherwise appealing female who when she speaks reveals anything of our now classic “the Irag and such as” inclinations or, really, absence of depth and/or intellectual capacity, turns my thumbs up into a thumbs down at mach speed. So while, yes, I suspect that the likes of timbre and inflection can alone serve as unconscious clues as to this core absence of circumspection, at the end of it all I still suspect that its the latter which initializes what I’ll call the need for an extended arm’s length. This is not to judge such a female unworthy of another man’s true admiration or affection. There seems a mold for every slip. But at least in my case there can be no great attraction where love itself is not possible and, to be more clear, no legitimate bridge between love and sheer pity. So while, sure, most men can probably relate to Chandler’s inevitable fatigue with the hilariously ever-nasal Janice in the popular sitcom “Friends”, I’d like to think the inevitable breakup wouldn’t have been so certain of she’d ever had anything of any real moment to say. (Or consider in this same light Elaine’s boyfriend David Puddy on the sitcom “Seinfeld”.) If the voice however can be shown to be a sure predictor of a fundamentally myopic perspective, (tone, inflection, pace, timing, etc.), I’m all for these conclusions.

  3. Otto Bhan

    Singer, Sam Cook, paraphrased in English.

    Don’t know much about the science book.

    Don’t know much of the French I took.

    But I do know that I love you.

    Because we fit like a comfortable shoe.

    What a wonderful world this could be.

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