Designing the Clinician’s Voice: Effects of Pitch and Professional Labels on Listener Perceptions

Objective:To examine how voice pitch influences listener perceptions of competence, trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness in healthcare professionals, using brief voice samples labeled as either doctors or nurses.Design:Cross-sectional online study using a between-subjects design.Setting:Participants were recruited from the Prolific.co online research platform and completed the study remotely.Participants:A total of 2,359 adults with normal or corrected-to-normal hearing participated. Each participant rated 50 one-word audio recordings (“hi”) on a 1–7 scale for one of four social attributes (competence, trustworthiness, dominance, or attractiveness).Main Outcome Measures:Perceived competence, trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness of voice samples, rated on a 7-point Likert scale. Voice samples were categorized by pitch (higher or lower) and randomly labeled as being spoken by either a doctor or a nurse.