ANDRZEJ KRAUZE
Joey Tribbiani was on to something. With a nod of the head and a cocky half-smile, the Friends character’s famous “How you doin’?” catchphrase, intended to lure women, epitomized the attractive traits in male voices—at least according to Yi Xu, who studies speech at University College London. A 2013 study by Xu found that women rated men’s voices as more attractive if they had a lower pitch, more breathiness (as opposed to a more pinched or pressed quality), and more-compact formants (which makes the voice sound deeper). “Everything reminds us of Joey from Friends,” Xu says.
The results of Xu’s study suggest that the content of speech isn’t everything (I mean, really, how many women are turned on by the words Joey says?)—the voice itself ...
