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You can tell how tall or strong a person is by hearing them roar

By Chelsea Whyte

28 June 2018

ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Hear me roar

YDL/Getty

Your voice can give away a lot about you.. Humans can tell whether other people are taller or stronger than they are just by listening to them roaring.

To test this, Jordan Raine at the University of Sussex and his colleagues recorded roars made by actors in training at a London drama school. β€œWe did a pilot study beforehand and found that some ordinary people were really uncomfortable doing the roars. But the actors got really into it,” says Raine.

He and his team instructed 31 men and 30 women to imagine themselves in a battle…

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