Donald Trump (second from right) speaks as Jeb Bush (left) Marco Rubio (second from left) and Ben Carson (right) look on during the CNBC Republican presidential debate at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, Oct. 28, 2015.
Hillary Clinton, Carly Fiorina, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are all politicians. This year, they have been running to become the next president. They all have very different ideas. They have something in common, though. They sound the same.

Scientists studied the speech patterns of Clinton, Fiorina, Sanders and Trump. They found that the politicians used their voices in similar ways. All four changed their voices depending on the audience.

The scientists described the study at a meeting for sound experts in Salt Lake City, Utah. Elected officials use the sounds of their voices to convince people to like them, Rosario Signorello said. Signorello works at UCLA and is one of the scientists behind the new study.

Addressing A Wide Audience

When it comes to running for office, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. The most successful elected officials are excellent speakers. Skilled speakers can persuade large crowds of very different people. A paragraph about chopped carrots would sound boring when read by a dull speaker's voice. It could be exciting when read by a skilled actor, though. Elected officials with experience know this very well.

Signorello said that elected officials are the best public speakers. They speak to every type of audience, from schoolchildren to very old people.

Signorello wanted to find out what makes politicians good speakers based on how they use their voice. Signorello studied the pitch of the four politicians. Pitch is the different tones the speakers used. Pitch can be high, like the sound of a flute, or low, like the sound of a drum.

Four Speakers, Same Deliveries

The scientists studied the politicians in three settings. One setting was speeches they made to voters. Another setting was when they were talking to other politicians. The third setting was when they were speaking to talk show interviewers.

The study found that all four politicians used their voices in some similar ways. When speaking to large crowds, they used both very low and very high voice pitches. Signorello found in an earlier study that this helps speakers to appear likable.

The politicians used a mix of pitches when speaking to a general audience of voters. They also changed the volume of their voices, speaking loudly at times and softly at other times.

This way of speaking makes sense for this type of audience, Signorello said. Large audiences have many people who are very different from one another. Politicians change their voices to try to sound likable to different groups at the same time.

Not Raising Their Voice Here

However, when the politicians were speaking to other politicians, they used low and medium voice pitches. Low and medium pitches signal power and control.

All of the candidates used their normal pitches when they chatted on talk shows. They did not discuss laws or running for office on the shows. None of the candidates changed their pitches or loudness, Signorello said.

Officials and candidates may share some speech tactics for impressing an audience. However, they don't behave exactly the same. For example, Clinton and Fiorina used lower pitches when addressing large crowds. Trump did the opposite, and Sanders used low and high pitches over the course of a speech.

In his next study, Signorello wants to look at lawmakers in other countries. He wants to see if other politicians have similar voice patterns to those in the United States.

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