Sound can tell if a woman is menstruating

It is said that "you can identify a woman by her scent", but did you know that some men can also "identify menstruation by her sound". Studies have shown that some men can tell whether a woman is menstruating by the sound of her voice.

In the study, three groups of men were tested and asked to listen to recordings of 10 women's voices counting from 1 to 5. Each woman has 4 recordings, each from a different time period of the complete menstrual cycle (ovulation, menstruation, etc.).

The men in the first group listened to four recordings of each woman in a random order, and were then asked to guess which recording was made during menstruation. Normally they had a 1 in 4 chance of guessing the correct answer, but in reality they got it right 35 percent of the time.

In 2008, the two researchers found that the voices of women who were ovulating were more attractive to men. So in a second group, the researchers replaced the ovulation recordings with recordings from a normal period. Even when potential comparisons were eliminated, the men still managed a hit rate of 34 percent.

The results were even more stark in the third group, in which the men were not told anything about their menstrual cycles. They simply asked the testers to pick the "least attractive" recording of each woman. The number of times the recordings during the menstrual period were selected was obviously higher than expected again, reaching 34%.

In fact, people in all three groups chose the menstrual recording more often, according to the researchers. So what exactly makes a woman's voice reveal her menstrual cycle? Men who were able to accurately identify menstrual recordings said they made their judgments based on the recorder's mood (good or bad), tone (harsh or peaceful), pitch (high or low) and speed (fast or slow). When people evaluated the recorded words based on these characteristics, they found that the menstrual voices were lower in emotion, tone, and pitch. “Men seem to judge menstruation by picking the least attractive sounds,” Pipitone explains.

There is evidence that men often make subconscious decisions about women's menstrual cycles. For example, a 2007 paper showed that strippers received 80% more tips when they were ovulating than when they were menstruating. However, this study is the first to prove that men can make judgments based on the sound of the voice.

Experts believe this adaptation is an example of a reproductive race, a phenomenon that runs through species from humans to bugs. Men are more interested in women when they are fertile.

Additionally, hormones during menstruation can cause changes in women's voices, revealing their menstrual cycles. "The production of voice is closely tied to our own biology. For example, the cells in the throat and vagina are very similar and have similar hormone receptors. A person's voice will carry a lot of information related to reproduction," Gallup said. To give an obvious example, we can judge a person's gender and age through a telephone conversation. In addition, the researchers found that people can directly or indirectly predict certain characteristics, such as appearance, body shape, physical strength, and even sexual behavior characteristics, based solely on the voice.