This Study Will Change the Way You Talk on the Phone
Think back to the last time you were on the phone with a client or remote coworker you’ve never met. Chances are, you wondered what the stranger on the other end of the line looked like, right? Well, a doctoral student in psychology recently explored this whole “judgment of strangers” thing and discovered that we’re pretty good at predicting what people look like based on their speaking voice.
In the study, Harriet Smith of Nottingham Trent University in England asked 47 participants to look at 18 pictures and then listen to 18 voices afterward. They were asked to rank the strangers by characteristics including health, masculinity, femininity and height based on their faces or voices. Smith found that the strangers received similar ratings, whether they were judged facially or vocally, Today reports. After that, the participants were asked to match voices with faces, and they got it right 60 percent of the time.
The study showed that the connection is especially strong when it comes to what we perceive as masculinity and femininity. In other words, if a person is tall, dark and handsome, he just might sound like that (George Clooney, looking at you), and a person who sounds like they’re wearing pink… just might be.
Of course, Smith says, people’s voices don’t always match up with their faces, but either way here’s a fun new game next time you’re on a business call: Imagine what the person looks like and then Google to see if you’re right.
What do you think about this study? Let us know @BritandCo.
(h/t Today + photo via Getty)
