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Chapter 354Visual input is not the only information humans perceive when selecting a mate. On the contrary, recent evidence suggests that attractiveness is multimodal, and voice and scent also influence mate choice decisions (Havlíček et al., 2008; Mahmut & Croy, 2019; White & Cunningham, 2017; Groyecka et al., 2017). Humans can efficiently extract information about a person’s identity and current state from a voice, such as female ovulatory status (Bryant & Haselton, 2009; Puts et al., 2013), emotional state (Belin et al., 2008), male physical dominance (Hodges-Simeon et al., 2010; Sell et al., 2010), body size (Wheatley et al., 2014), and age (Skoog Waller et al., 2015). When it comes to voice qualities and voice attractiveness, multiple aspects seem to affect what is considered an attractive voice. For example, women tend to prefer lower-pitch voices (masculine voices), while men prefer higher-pitch voices (feminine voices), and both men and women prefer averaged voices. Importantly, these general preferences do seem to differ between individuals; suggesting that what is an attractive voice for one person, might not be attractive for the other (Pisanski & Feinberg, 2018; Vukovic et al., 2010, 2011). This finding highlights the importance of accounting for individual preferences when examining partner choice. Even though people can identify attractive voices from recordings, vocal attractiveness is also affected by the dynamics during an interaction, such as changes in voice pitch (Pisanski et al., 2018) and vocal convergence (Farley et al., 2013). Thus, whether attractiveness ratings of isolated vocal samples predict date success remains to be examined.Not only the voice, but also the scent of a potential partner might be used as a cue when it comes to partner choice (Havlíček et al., 2008; Mahmut & Croy, 2019; White & Cunningham, 2017). Importantly, humans use scent to extract an impressive amount of information relevant for mate choice, such as sex, dominance, fertility, health, and genetic compatibility (Groyecka et al., 2017; Lobmaier et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2008). Interestingly, smell might be more important for women than for men (Havlíček et al., 2008). Previous research on olfactory preferences of men have mainly focused on genetic compatibility (e.g., Roberts et al., 2008) and ovulatory shift effects (e.g., Lobmaier et al., 2018), while the contribution of olfactory attractiveness in male mate choice has remained relatively unexplored. Altogether, these findings suggest that incorporating vocal and olfactory cues of attractiveness might explain a substantial amount of variance in mate choice.Tom Roth.indd 54 08-01-2024 10:41