When it comes to seducing a man, it's not the looks that make the cut but the woman's message which has to be clear enough to give the right cue, suggests a new study.
When it comes to seducing a man, it's not the looks that make the cut but the woman's message which has to be clear enough to give the right cue, suggests a new study.u00a0
Ina study, conducted by British researchers, 30 men were asked to listen to recordings made by four women aged around 25 who said the phrase: "I really like you."
u00a0
The research team, then asked the male volunteers to rate the women for attractiveness purely on the basis of the sound of their voice. They were shown no pictures.
u00a0
When the pitch of the woman's voice was slightly raised by increasing the playback speed, the attractiveness rating increased.
u00a0
The higher the pitch, the more the men liked it, even when the women's voices were tuned higher than average.
u00a0
But when men listened to the same women saying the phrase: "I don't really like you," they downgraded the attractiveness of the voice, regardless of the pitch.
u00a0
And when the offending phrase was played backwards - leaving just the quality of the voice to be judged - the attractiveness rating once again increased.
u00a0
The authors suggest that a clear verbal cue is one of the basket of signals that women can send to get a man to act on his impulses, reports The Daily Telegraph.
u00a0
Other cues include a smile, an eye-to-eye look and a pleased expression.
u00a0
In other words, beauty itself is not enough for a man.
u00a0
Benedict Jones, lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, suggests that the male need for clarity is a residual evolutionary trait.
u00a0
In the mating business, ignoring subtle signals that one is not wanted could be a waste of precious time and energy or worse, he said.
u00a0
The study is published in Biology Letters, a journal published by the Royal Society, Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.
