The researchers, at Pennsylvania State University, believe that women's high voices may signal youth and fertility to men who are listening, in the same way that men's deep voices are believed to signal dominance。

　　"These results support our prediction that women use vocal characteristics to track the threat potential of their competitors," said David Puts, the anthropologist who led the study. "They shed new light on how men choose and women compete for mates. We found that women were most threatened by a high, youthful-sounding voice in another woman."

　　"Because men prefer feminine voices, one might also expect that women vying for the attentions of men would elevate vocal femininity by raising the pitch and timbre of their voices," the researchers add。

　　英国《每日电讯报》10日报道：女人可以发现那些擅于挑逗的情敌的声音

　　人类学家近日宣称，女性可通过其他女性的音调高低来判断情敌对自己构成的威胁大小。

　　在一项研究中，男性受试者听毕一组女声录音后称音调较高的女性听起来更有魅力，当被告知从中选择一夜情对象时这种结论更具有压倒性。而另一方面，女人在听了相同的录音后，也能准确指出哪种声音对男人而言更有吸引力。

　　来自美国宾夕法尼亚州州立大学的研究人员认为，女性的高音调会给男性留下年轻、生育能力好的印象，这与嗓音低沉的男性似乎更有主导力这一印象形成的原因是一致的。

　　“研究结果证明了我们的预测是对的，即女性会通过声音特征来判断自己竞争对手的威胁程度，”该项研究领导人、人类学家大卫-朴茨说道。“研究结果为男人如何选择伴侣和女人如何争夺伴侣提供了更多线索。我们发现女人最容易因另一个女人高亢、听起来较为年轻的嗓音感受到威胁。”

　　“因为男性更喜欢女性化嗓音，我们也可据此推测，那些想吸引男性注意力的女性会提高音调、修饰音色，从而提升自己嗓音的女性魅力，”研究人员补充说。