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Purpose: The human voice is a powerful and evolved social tool, with hundreds of studies showing that nonverbal vocal parameters robustly influence listeners' perceptions of socially meaningful speaker traits, ranging from perceived gender and age to attractiveness and trustworthiness. However, these studies have utilized a wide variety of voice stimuli to measure listeners' voice-based judgments of these traits. Here, in the largest scale study known to date, we test whether listeners judge the same unseen speakers differently depending on the complexity of the neutral speech stimulus, from single vowel sounds to a full paragraph. Method: In a playback experiment testing 2,618 listeners, we examine whether commonly studied voice-based judgments of attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, femininity/masculinity, and health differ if listeners hear isolated vowels, a series of vowels, single words, single sentences (greeting), counting from 1 to 10, or a full paragraph recited aloud (Rainbow Passage), recorded from the same 208 men and women. Data were collected using a custom-designed interface in which vocalizers and traits were randomly assigned to raters. Results: Linear-mixed models show that the type of voice stimulus does indeed consistently affect listeners' judgments. Overall, ratings of attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, health, masculinity among men, and femininity among women increase as speech duration increases. At the same time, speaker-level regression analyses show that interindividual differences in perceived speaker traits are largely preserved across voice stimuli, especially among those of a similar duration. Conclusions: Socially relevant perceptions of speakers are not wholly changed but rather moderated by the length of their speech. Indeed, the same vocalizer is perceived in a similar way regardless of which neutral statements they speak, with the caveat that longer utterances explain the most shared variance in listeners' judgments and elicit the highest ratings on all traits, possibly by providing additional nonverbal information to listeners. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21158890

It has been hypothesized that an increase in literacy within a society is associated with more negative perceptions of aging and older adults. The present study empirically tested this premise among the Dani in West Papua. Sixty-one Dani participants were asked to nominate two individuals within each of the following categories: (1) most respected, (2) best source of life advice, and (3) most satisfied with life. They also reported the age and gender of the nominees. Literacy was associated with nominating younger targets in the life advice and life satisfaction categories. These results add evidence that literacy is associated with perceptions of older adults. We conclude by discussing the scholarly and practical implications of these findings.

Social perception is a multimodal process involving vision and audition as central input sources for human social cognitive processes. However, it remains unclear how profoundly deaf people assess others in the context of mating and social interaction. The current study explored the relative importance of different sensory modalities (vision, smell, and touch) in assessments of opposite- and same-sex strangers. We focused on potential sensory compensation processes in mate selection (i.e., increased importance of the intact senses in forming impressions of an opposite-sex stranger as a potential partner). A total of 74 deaf individuals and 100 normally hearing controls were included in the study sample. We found diminished importance of vision and smell in deaf participants compared with controls for opposite- and same-sex strangers, and increased importance of touch for the assessment of same-sex strangers. The results suggested that deaf people rely less on visual and olfactory cues in mating and social assessments, highlighting a possible role of sign language in shaping interpersonal tactile experience in non-romantic relationships.

Gustatory ability is an important marker of health status, including COVID-19 disease. We compare self-reporting with home and lab psychophysical “taste strips” tests in healthy subjects. The taste test consisted of paper strips impregnated with sweet, bitter, salty, or sour tastants, and with the trigeminal stimulus capsaicin, each in high and in low concentration. The test was carried out either in a controlled lab environment (74 participants, 47 women) with the strips being administered by the experimenter or self-administered by the participants at home (77 participants, 59 women). After self-reporting their subjective assessment of chemosensory ability, the participant identified the taste of each strip and rated intensity and pleasantness.Identification score, intensity, and pleasantness averaged over the 8 taste strips were similar between the lab and the home-administered tests. Self-rated taste ability did not correlate with any of these scores, but strongly correlated with self-rated smell ability in the lab group (r=0.73), and moderately correlated in the home group (r=0.51). Taste identification correlated with intensity ratings (r=0.63 lab, r=0.36 home) but not with the pleasantness ratings (r=-0.14 lab, r=0.1 home).The results of the taste strips test were similar in the lab and at home for healthy young participants and provide a baseline against which taste tests can be compared in future applications.

Height preferences reflecting positive assortative mating for height—wherein an individual’s own height positively predicts the preferred height of their mate—have been observed in several distinct human populations and are thought to increase reproductive fitness. However, the extent to which assortative preferences for height differ strategically for short-term versus long-term relationship partners, as they do for numerous other indices of mate quality, remains unclear. We explore this possibility in a large representative sample of over 500 men and women aged 15–77 from Canada, Cuba, Norway and the United States. Participants’ own heights were measured, and they indicated their height preferences for a long-term and short-term mate using graphic stimuli containing metric indices. Replicating the “male-taller norm,” participants on average preferred taller-than-average male mates, and shorter-than-average female mates. Positive assortative preferences for height were observed across sexes and samples, however the strength of these height preferences varied with relationship context for men, and not for women. Taller men preferred relatively shorter women for short-term relationships than for long-term relationships, indicating stronger assortative preferences for height in a long-term context. These results provide preliminary evidence that, in addition to mate preferences for other physical traits related to mate quality such as masculinity in the body, face, and voice, assortative preferences for height do vary as a function of expected relationship length, but this was surprisingly only observed in preferences for female height.

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale – STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were based on a sample of 7332 participants from 25 countries (from all inhabited continents). We tested configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, all of which confirmed the cultural universality of the theoretical construct of love analyzed in our study. We also observed that levels of love components differ depending on relationship duration, following the dynamics suggested in the Triangular Theory of Love. Supplementary files with all our data, including results on love intensity across different countries along with STLS versions adapted in a few dozen languages, will further enable more extensive research on the Triangular Theory of Love. This article will not be available due to copyright restrictions © 2020 by The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality

Variability in human olfactory sensitivity has been attributed to individual-level factors such as genetics, age, sex, medical history of infections and trauma, neurogenerative diseases, and emotional disorders. Scarce evidence exists on the cross-cultural variation in olfactory sensitivity. Hence, we performed 2 studies to estimate the variability in olfactory threshold as a function of location and environment. Study 1 involved 11 laboratories from 4 continents (N = 802). In each location, in a designated laboratory, approximately 80 subjects underwent olfactory sensitivity testing with custom-made tests with eucalyptol and phenylethanol (PEA) odors. Tests were based on the Threshold subtest of the Sniffin' Sticks battery. In Study 2, we compared olfactory sensitivity and suprathreshold perception of PEA and eucalyptol in 2 Chinese (N = 160) and 2 Indian (N = 92) populations-one based in their native country and the other in Germany. Both studies present large-scale evidence that olfactory sensitivity varies as a function of geographical location and suggest that environmental factors play an important role in shaping olfactory sensitivity and suprathreshold olfactory perception. We delineate further steps necessary to identify specific factors underlying uncovered variability and the relationship between olfactory sensitivity and suprathreshold odor perception. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The exposure-driven olfactory compensation associated with sensory loss is likely to be observed in assessment of food-related dangers. Therefore, in the current study we tested the hypothesis that olfactory compensation occurs in the case of protection from food-related hazards. We compared thresholds for detection of an unpleasant rotten food odor (fermented fish sauce) in four groups of subjects: blind subjects (n = 100), sighted controls (n = 100), deaf subjects (n = 74) and hearing controls (n = 99). Overall, we observed no significant differences in smell acuity between the blind and deaf groups and their matched control samples. However, the sensory deprived subjects assessed their sensitivity as higher than did control groups. The present study is yet another example of research among large samples of sensory deprived individuals that shows no evidence of olfactory compensation. This result is consistent with a growing number of studies suggesting no sensory compensation in simple, absolute sensitivity tasks.

Fatigue is an important symptom that negatively affects the quality of life of patients with many chronic diseases. Although it is reported to be one of the most impactful symptoms, fatigue is ofte...

Disgust might be elicited by various sensory channels, including the sense of smell. It has been previously demonstrated that unpleasant odors emitted by an external source are more disgusting than those emitted by oneself (the source effect). As disgust's main purpose is to help organisms avoid potentially dangerous, contaminating objects, individuals with visual or hearing sensory impairment (thus, with an impeded ability to detect cues indicating pathogen threat) might have developed an increased levels of olfactory disgust sensitivity (modality compensation in disgust sensitivity). We set out to investigate disgust sensitivity in olfaction using the Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS) on a large sample of 74 deaf and 98 blind participants, with comparison to control groups without sensory impairment (N = 199 in total). The results did not support the hypothesis of modality compensation in disgust sensitivity. Contrary to previous research, neither sex nor age influenced the outcomes. Evidence for the source effect was found. Acquired data are interpreted in the light of social desirability. The emphasis put on the olfaction by blind and deaf individuals is discussed.

Olfaction is functional at birth and newborns use their sense of smell to navigate their environment. Yet, certain chemosensory abilities are subject to experience and develop with age. It has been argued that odor discrimination is a key ability enabling organisms to capture and distinguish odors occurring in the environment to further identify them and formulate a behavioral response. Yet, the development of odor discrimination abilities has been overlooked in the literature, with few attempts to investigate developmental changes in odor discrimination abilities independent of verbal abilities and olfactory experience. Here, building on these attempts, we propose a novel approach to studying the development of odor discrimination abilities by utilizing odor enantiomers—pairs of odorous molecules of identical chemical and physical features, but differing in optical activity. We hypothesized that discrimination of enantiomeric odor pairs in children and adolescents would be less prone to age effects than discrimination of pairs of common odors due to their encoding difficulty and their limited exposure in common olfactory experience. We examined olfactory discrimination abilities in children aged 4–12 years with regard to three common odor pairs and five enantiomeric odor pairs. The study protocol eliminated verbal and cognitive development bias, resulting in diminished age advantage of the older children in discrimination of enantiomers as compared to common odors.

Nowadays many human interactions take place in the virtual environment. To express emotions and attitudes in computer-mediated communication (CMC) individuals use emoticons - graphic representations of emotions and ideas. Contemporary applications serving computer-mediated communication (CMC) are provided with a broad spectrum of emoticons which may be used in communication. Variety of emoticons gives users of CMC an opportunity to create unique messages and express emotions in a creative manner. This study involved 275 online respondents and aimed to verify whether the frequency of emoticons use may be predicted by the three characteristics of creativity (creative abilities, openness, independence). Bayesian regression analysis showed that creativity does not predict frequency of emoticons use in CMC. No correspondence between creativity and frequency of emoticons use may be explained by pragmatic function of emoticons as they are used to communicate efficiently with an emphasis on the sender-recipient shared understanding of the emoticons meaning. What is more, robust popularity of communication applications leads to widespread employment of emoticons by CMC users. Therefore, with growing number of emoticons users’ creative individuals may seek less common means of expressing own creativity.

Acoustic analysis and playback studies have greatly advanced our understanding of between-individual differences in nonverbal communication. Yet, researchers have only recently begun to investigate within-individual variation in the voice, particularly how people modulate key vocal parameters across various social contexts, with most of this research focusing on mating contexts. Here, we investigated whether men and women modulate the frequency components of their voices in a professional context, and how this voice modulation affects listeners’ assessments of the speakers’ competence and authority. Research assistants engaged scientists working as faculty members at various universities in two types of speech conditions: (1) Control speech, wherein the subjects were asked how to get to the administrative offices on that given campus; and (2) Authority speech, wherein the same subjects were asked to provide commentary for a radio program for young scholars titled, “How to become a scientist, and is it worth it?”. Our results show that male (n = 27) and female (n = 24) faculty members lowered their mean voice pitch (measured as fundamental frequency, F0) and vocal tract resonances (measured as formant position, Pf) when asked to provide their expert opinion compared to when giving directions. Notably, women lowered their mean voice pitch more than did men (by 33 Hz vs. 14 Hz) when giving expert advice. The results of a playback experiment further indicated that foreign-speaking listeners judged the voices of faculty members as relatively more competent and more authoritative based on authority speech than control speech, indicating that the observed nonverbal voice modulation effectively altered listeners’ perceptions. Our results support the prediction that people modulate their voices in social contexts in ways that are likely to elicit favorable social appraisals.

To date, most studies on the relationship between chemosensory performance and quality of life have focused on orthonasal measures of olfactory function. In the current investigation, we examined the predictive value of orthonasal and flavor identification indices of olfactory function on a wide spectrum of health and sociopsychological factors, including quality of life, life satisfaction, overall health, and depressive symptoms. Participants were 178 ENT patients (Mage = 58 ± 1), representing various causes of olfactory loss: idiopathic smell loss (n = 51; Mage = 63 ± 2), sinunasal disease (n = 27; Mage = 56 ± 3), head trauma (n = 33; Mage = 51 ± 2), and infections of the upper respiratory tract (n = 67; Mage = 59 ± 2). They completed self-report questionnaires and underwent olfactory testing using Sniffin’ Sticks (orthonasal olfactory testing) and “Taste Powder” (intraorally applied flavors for retronasal olfactory testing, additionally inducing taste sensation). Data were analyzed with hierarchical regression models wherein the first step included subjects’ sex, age, and orthonasal olfaction score. In the second step, we included the “Taste Powder” score. Tested models revealed that the first step was not significantly predicting variables of interest; however, there was an improvement of the model’s predictive value when the “Taste Powder” score was added. Results of this study suggest that flavor identification significantly improves predictions of health and sociopsychological functioning of ENT patients with various etiologies.

People can navigate through an environment using different sensory information, including olfactory cues. Correct intranasal localization and external location of odors can be learned, and some people are able to lateralize olfactory stimuli above chance, which raises the question: What determines the spectrum of olfactory localization abilities. Here, we explored whether odor lateralization and localization abilities are increased in the course of sensory compensation. In a series of studies, we combined two different aspects of odor localization. Study 1 compared abilities of 69 blind people (Mage = 41 ± 1.6 years; 32 females) and 45 sighted controls (Mage = 38.3 ± 2.1 years; 25 females) to correctly lateralize eucalyptol, an odorant with a strong trigeminal component, presented to either nostril. Studies 2 and 3 involved a more ecologically valid task, namely spatial localization of olfactory stimuli. In Study 2, 13 blind individuals (Mage = 28.5 ± 3.5 years; seven females) and 16 sighted controls (Mage = 34.9 ± 3.2 years; ten females) tried to localize a single odorant, while in Study 3, 97 blind individuals (Mage = 43.1 ± .5 years; 48 females) and 47 sighted controls (Mage = 38.7 ± .7 years; 27 females) attempted to localize a single target odor in an experimental olfactory space comprising four different odorants. Blind and sighted subjects did not differ in their abilities to lateralize and to localize odors, and their performance across all tasks suggests that odor lateralization and localization are important for navigation in an environment regardless of visual status.

Purpose For functionally anosmic subjects, the sense of smell is basically useless in daily activities—they are unlikely to detect the threatening smell of rotten food, gas or smoke, or to enjoy the flavor of food or the smell of perfumes. Although this appears very distressing, functionally anosmic subjects in our sample seemed not to be aware or bothered with impaired olfaction and enrolled for the study targeted to people with a normal sense of smell. Methods In the large sample of 9139 subjects who declared themselves to have a normal sense of smell, we have retrospectively found a notable proportion of scores indicating functional anosmia. Results When we look at the overall Sniffin’ Sticks score, 0.45% of the sample was functionally anosmic and this fraction increased to 3.4% when the identification score of 8 points and below was used. We present demographical information of those subjects, who despite their inability to use smell in daily life, consider themselves healthy. Conclusions Data offer a new perspective on the importance of olfaction in daily life and supports the notion about the importance of using screening tools in clinical practice.

International audience; Olfactory deficits can play a detrimental role in everyday social functioning. Perception of 3-hydroxy-3-methylhexanoic acid (HMHA)-a body odor component-could also be linked to this research area. However, no study so far has addressed the problem of HMHA perception in the context of the previously reported relationship between olfactory abilities and social difficulties. Here, we tested whether HMHA-specific anosmia predicted loneliness understood both as a cognitive evaluation of social participation and as one's social isolation, and we additionally analyzed the effects and correlates of HMHA perception in relation to sightedness. The study comprised 196 people, of whom 99 were blind. We found that subjects with blindness declared particularly high loneliness, but HMHA anosmia and the interaction of sightedness and HMHA anosmia predicted neither loneliness nor social withdrawal. In addition, HMHA pleasantness was positively associated with social withdrawal of the subjects with blindness and emotional loneliness correlated with HMHA familiarity regardless of sightedness.

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1845586. The work of T.T.K.H. was supported by grant no. 501.01-2016.02 from the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED). A.O. was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant no. 626/STYP/12/2017). A.S. and P.S. were supported by National Science Center-Poland (grant no. 2014/13/B/HS6/02644). Marina Butovskaya and D.D. were supported by State assignment project No. 01201370995 of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow, Russia. P.G., A.L. and N.M. were supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund-(OTKA; grant no. K125437). F.J. was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant no. 71971225). G.A. was supported by UKRI/GCRF Gender, Justice, Security Grant (grant no. AH/S004025/1)., A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attention has been directed towards the relationship between sex ratio and mate preferences, despite the importance of mate preferences in the human mating literature. To address this gap, we examined sex ratio’s relationship to the variation in preferences for attractiveness, resources, kindness, intelligence and health in a long-term mate across 45 countries (n = 14 487). We predicted that mate preferences would vary according to relative power of choice on the mating market, with increased power derived from having relatively few competitors and numerous potential mates. We found that each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce. This pattern dovetails with those found for mating strategies in humans and mate preferences across species, highlighting the importance of sex ratio for understanding variation in human mate preferences., National Science Foundation (NSF) 1845586, National Foundation for Science & Technology Development (NAFOSTED) 501.01-2016.02, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland, European Commission 626/STYP/12/2017, National Science Centre, Poland 2014/13/B/HS6/02644, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow, Russia 01201370995, Orszagos Tudomanyos Kutatasi Alapprogramok (OTKA) K125437, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 71971225, UKRI/GCRF Gender, Justice, Security Grant AH/S004025/1

The existence of pheromones in humans is controversial, partly because of definitional difficulties and partly because of the question of possible chemical substances. The synthetic compound Methyl dihydrojasmonate (Hedione) is potent to bind to vomeronasal-type 1 receptors (VN1R1s) and activate limbic areas of the brain in a sex-specific manner. However, one of the most important definitional points for a human pheromone effect has not yet been investigated, i.e., whether smelling Hedione, a model of pheromone, has a behavioral effect. We tested in females whether Hedione leads to altered perception of male social stimuli. Each of the included women were sensitive to Hedione and were tested around the time of ovulation in three consecutive sessions, during each they were exposed to either Hedione or Phenylethyl alcohol or Odorless air. We measured the speed of male face recognition (implicit priming task) and collected ratings of facial attractiveness and likeability of men (explicit task). Only about half of the women tested were sensitive to Hedione. Those women did not show any effect of Hedione exposure in the implicit priming task and moderate, but non-significant effects in the explicit task. We therefore assume that Hedione is not a potent model of pheromone in humans and this observation may be due to the fact that the artificially produced substance is not suited for signaling the proximity of other humans. Furthermore, the high rate of Hedione-specific anosmia leads to the hypothesis that a substantial proportion of individuals has a poor V1NR1 receptor expression.

Purpose To investigate the clinical utility of q-Powders—a retronasal identification screening test. Methods A total of 156 subjects (92 females, mean age: 54.5 years ± 17.3 years) completed a 3-item q-Powders retronasal identification test and a 16-items Sniffin’ Sticks orthonasal identification test. We analyzed whether the q-Powders test could differentiate between subjects with normosmia and subjects with an olfactory disorder. Results Our data indicated that subjects with an olfactory disorder scored lower in the q-Powders test than subjects with normosmia. The analyses revealed q-Powders test sensitivity of 84% and a test specificity of 64.9% with a score of 2 points taken as a cutoff for olfactory disorders. Conclusion The 3-item q-Powders retronasal test may be used for screening purposes in clinical research. Level of evidence 4

Seventy-nine percent of internet users use Facebook, and on average they access Facebook eight times a day (Greenwood et al., 2016). To put these numbers into perspective, according to Clement (2019), around 30% of the world’s population uses this Online Social Network (OSN) site. Despite the constantly growing body of academic research on Facebook (Chou et al., 2009 ; Back et al., 2010 ; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010 ; McAndrew and Jeong, 2012 ; Wilson et al., 2012 ; Krasnova et al., 2017), there remains limited research regarding the motivation behind Facebook use across different cultures. Our main goal was to collect data from a large cross-cultural sample of Facebook users to examine the roles of sex, age, and, most importantly, cultural differences underlying Facebook use.

Purpose The olfactory system can be successfully rehabilitated with regular, intermittent stimulation during multiple daily exposures to selected sets of odors, i.e., olfactory training (OT). OT has been repeatedly shown to be an effective tool of olfactory performance enhancement. Recent advancements in studies on OT suggest that its beneficial effects exceed olfaction and extend to specific cognitive tasks. So far, studies on OT provided compelling evidence for its effectiveness, but there is still a need to search for an optimal OT protocol. The present study examined whether increased frequency of OT leads to better outcomes in both olfactory and cognitive domains. Method Fifty-five subjects (28 females; Mage = 58.2 ± 11.3 years; 26 patients with impaired olfaction) were randomly assigned to a standard (twice a day) or intense (four times a day) OT. Olfactory and cognitive measurements were taken before and after OT. Results OT performed twice a day was more effective in supporting olfactory rehabilitation and interventions targeted to verbal semantic fluency than OT performed four times a day, even more so in subjects with lower baseline scores. Conclusions OT is effective in supporting olfactory rehabilitation and interventions targeted to verbal semantic fluency. However, it may be prone to a ceiling effect, being efficient in subjects presenting with lower baseline olfactory performance and lower verbal semantic fluency.