ORCID Profile
0000-0001-8900-796X
Current Organisations
University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
,
University of Vienna
,
University of Ferrara
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-09-2023
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2018
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2022
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 07-07-2022
DOI: 10.3389/FPSYG.2022.911854
Abstract: Vocal and facial cues typically co-occur in natural settings, and multisensory processing of voice and face relies on their synchronous presentation. Psychological research has examined various facial and vocal cues to attractiveness as well as to judgements of sexual dimorphism, health, and age. However, few studies have investigated the interaction of vocal and facial cues in attractiveness judgments under naturalistic conditions using dynamic, ecologically valid stimuli. Here, we used short videos or audio tracks of females speaking full sentences and used a manipulation of voice pitch to investigate cross-modal interactions of voice pitch on facial attractiveness and related ratings. Male participants had to rate attractiveness, femininity, age, and health of synchronized audio-video recordings or voices only, with either original or modified voice pitch. We expected audio stimuli with increased voice pitch to be rated as more attractive, more feminine, healthier, and younger. If auditory judgements cross-modally influence judgements of facial attributes, we additionally expected the voice pitch manipulation to affect ratings of audiovisual stimulus material. We tested 106 male participants in a within-subject design in two sessions. Analyses revealed that voice recordings with increased voice pitch were perceived to be more feminine and younger, but not more attractive or healthier. When coupled with video recordings, increased pitch lowered perceived age of faces, but did not significantly influence perceived attractiveness, femininity, or health. Our results suggest that our manipulation of voice pitch has a measurable impact on judgements of femininity and age, but does not measurably influence vocal and facial attractiveness in naturalistic conditions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-08-2022
Abstract: Some multimodal signals—that is, occurring in more than one sensory modality—appear to carry additional information which is not present when component signals are presented separately. To understand the function of male ring dove's ( Streptopelia risoria ) multimodal courtship, we used audiovisual playback of male displays to investigate female response to stimuli differing in their audiovisual timing. From natural courtship recordings, we created a shifted stimulus where audio was shifted relative to video by a fixed value and a jittered stimulus, where each call was moved randomly along the visual channel. We presented 3 groups of females with the same stimulus type, that is, control, shifted, and jittered, for 7 days. We recorded their behavior and assessed pre‐ and post‐test blood estradiol concentration. We found that playback exposure increased estradiol levels, confirming that this technique can be efficiently used to study doves’ sexual communication. Additionally, chasing behavior (indicating sexual stimulation) increased over experimental days only in the control condition, suggesting a role of multimodal timing on female response. This stresses the importance of signal configuration in multimodal communication, as additional information is likely to be contained in the temporal association between modalities.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-08-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-05-2021
DOI: 10.1111/ETH.13161
Abstract: Courtship displays are complex behaviours that evolve mainly through sexual selection. Males of golden‐collared manakins ( Manacus vitellinus ) gather in leks and perform very elaborate courtship displays in forest courts to attract females. The rapid movements of the display, that involve acrobatic jumps between saplings, are challenging to record and investigate. Here we describe the use of a combination of tools to quantify the choreographies of manakin displays and reveal previously unknown aspects of the courtship. To test the prediction that aspects of male jump trajectories vary among males and may be subject to female choice, we evaluated whether parameters including take‐off angle and velocity vary between in idual males and displays. We used a custom‐built synchronized camera system to record courtship displays in the field, under highly variable lighting conditions. We then used automatic image pattern recognition software to track the movements of the birds and extract three‐dimensional (3D) coordinates of the birds' movements. After post‐processing and cleaning of the raw 3D data, we compared automated and manually produced annotations to test the reliability of the 3D tracking methods. A subsequent analysis of tracked movements revealed that in idual males performed their displays consistently across different recordings. We found that males express extreme values of force when they jump off saplings and the jump trajectory has a ballistic shape, confirming that no additional propulsion is provided by the wings. We also applied the analysis approach to non‐jumping birds and found that they move at greater heights than jumping males. The acquired knowledge and the developed methods will allow us to compare different males in relation to courtship success in order to understand the role of choreographies in mate choice.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 22-02-2021
DOI: 10.1093/ICB/ICAB001
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-05-2019
DOI: 10.1111/ETH.12882
Location: United States of America
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Leonida Fusani.