Jennifer Viegas at Discovery Channel:
The human brain processes male and female voices differently, according to a recent study that looked at how the human brain reacts to male and female voices.
The research explains why most of us hear female voices more clearly, as well as that we form mental images of people based only on the sound of their voices.
The findings, published in the current journal NeuroImage, also might give insight into why many men tire of hearing women speak: the “complexity” of female voices requires a lot of brain activity.
“It is females’ increased use of prosody, or the natural ‘melody’ of speech, that makes their voices more complex,” said Michael Hunter, one of the study’s authors.
More here.