Fig. 5

Influence of cry pitch and of baby’s declared sex on adult listeners’ assessment of discomfort levels. The figure shows the perceived discomfort (rated on a seven-point Likert scale) during listening of five pitch variants of re-synthesised cries (mean F0 = 310, 375, 440, 505 and 570 Hz, respectively). One set of participants (30 women and 6 men) was told that the cries originated from boys, and the other (30 women and 11 men) that they originated from girls. Higher-pitched cries are rated as expressing more discomfort than lower-pitched cries (effect of re-synthesised pitch variant on rating score: F(4,7376) = 188.8, P < 0.0005). At lower pitch, male listeners over-estimate the discomfort expressed by cries when presented as belonging to boys (red dots) compared to cries presented as belonging to girls (purple dots; F(4,7376) = 2.5, P = 0.04). For the purpose of clarity, only the fitted lines of the marginal means are shown for female listeners (red and purple solid lines). * p < 0.05