Effects of Masculinized and Feminized Male Voices on Men and Women's Distractibility and Implicit Memory

Men's lower-pitched voices may serve to attract mates and/or deter same-sex rivals. If this is the case, then both men and women should be more attentive to men's lower-pitched voices because, attending to this information may contribute to survival or confer a reproductive advantage. The current study measured men and women's distractibility and implicit memory for sentences spoken by a masculinized (lower-pitched) and feminized (higher-pitched) male voice. Participants completed an irrelevant speech task followed by an implicit memory task to assess their memory for previously presented irrelevant speech. In the irrelevant speech task, distractibility did not differ between men and women. However, men demonstrated greater implicit memory for sentences previously spoken by the masculinized male voice, and women demonstrated greater implicit memory for sentences previously spoken by the feminized male voice. These results suggest men may have an increased sensitivity to dominance cues in other men's voices. Reasons why men demonstrated greater implicit memory for sentences spoken by a masculinized man's voice and why women demonstrated a trend toward greater implicit memory for sentences spoken by a feminized man's voice are discussed.