Children's Responses to Genuine Child Synthesized Speech in Child-Robot Interaction

Sandygulova, Anara; O’Hare, Gregory M. P.

doi:10.1145/2701973.2702058

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Findings for robots are few and mixed and may have been affected by methodological limitations related to the response options provided to participants. For instance, Sandygulova and O'Hare [32] provided only two options in line with the gender binary when asking children about how they would ascribe the gender and age of a robot's voice. With gender-expansive options, the results may change.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Gender-Expansive Categorization Options for Robots

Seaborn

Pennefather²,

Kotani

2022

CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

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Gender is increasingly being explored as a social characteristic ascribed to robots by people. Yet, research involving social robots that may be gendered tends not to address gender perceptions, such as through pilot studies or manipulation checks. Moreover, research that does address gender perceptions has been limited by a reliance on the human gender binary model of feminine and masculine, prescriptive response options, and/or researcher assumptions and/or ascriptions of participant gendering. In response, we conducted an online pilot categorization study (n=55) wherein we provided gender-expansive response options for rating four robots ranging across four levels of anthropomorphism. Findings indicate that people gender robots in diverse ways, and not necessarily in relation to the gender binary. Additionally, less anthropomorphic robots and the childlike humanoid robot were deemed masculine, while the iconic robot was deemed gender neutral, fluid, and/or ambiguous. We discuss implications for future work on all humanoid robots. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing~Human computer interaction (HCI) • Social and professional topics~User characteristics~Gender

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Gender-Expansive Categorization Options for Robots

Seaborn

Pennefather²,

Kotani

2022

CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

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“…A New Zealand based study [84] found that users of a healthcare robot had more positive feelings towards it and viewed its performance as more satisfactory when it had a New Zealand accent compared to when it had a US accent. Likewise, a group of children in Ireland preferred the robot that spoke in a UK-accented voice rather than a US-accented voice [80]. In another study in Ireland, Cowan [17] found that users of a navigation system rated the system with an Irish accent as more trustworthy than a US accent irrespective of system accuracy.…”

Section: Technology and Studies Of Voicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, voice and speech features can vary across very small groups. In most of the cases described above, "similarity" has been conceptualised as sharing the same nationality with the experiments contrasting a native accent with non-native ones (aside from [80] which does not use an Irish accent). This overlooks the great wealth of geographical variation in accents, not to mention other kinds of social variation (e.g.…”

Section: Technology and Studies Of Voicementioning

confidence: 99%

Voice as a Design Material

Sutton

Foulkes

Kirk

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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While there is a renewed interest in voice user interfaces (VUI) in HCI, little attention has been paid to the design of VUI voice output beyond intelligibility and naturalness. We draw on the ield of sociophonetics-the study of the social factors that inluence the production and perception of speech-to highlight how current VUIs are based on a limited and homogenised set of voice outputs. We argue that current systems do not adequately consider the diversity of peoples' speech, how that diversity represents sociocultural identities, and how voices have the potential to shape user perceptions and experiences. Ultimately, as other technological developments have inluenced the ideologies of language, the voice outputs of VUIs will inluence the ideologies of speech. Based on our argument, we pose three design strategies for VUI voice output designindividualisation, context awareness, and diversiication-to motivate new ways of conceptualising and designing these technologies. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models; Sound-based input / output.

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“…No significant effect was found for pleasantness or intelligibility and this may simply be because the voices rely on equally mature, natural sounding TTS technology although one has to be careful when interpreting "no effect". Future work should involve examining the perceived gender of the two robots in question and looking at varying the pedagogical environment in order to investigate if the perception of the robot changes depending on the task at hand as was found by [17]. The idea of complexity of interactions and embodiment would be interesting to investigate at different age ranges as well as in relation to the different genders.…”

Section: Discussion and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding gender of the robot voice, recent work from Reich-Stiebert and Eyssel [16] indicated that a mismatch of robot gender and gender typicality of the respective learning task led to increased willingness to engage in prospective learning processes with the robot. A study by Sandygulova [17] also showed that children's responses to perceived gender and age of voices of a NAO robot were influenced by changing its voice. Whilst we are not specifically studying the uncanny-valley, there are also studies with relation to a mismatch of voice and embodiment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Interaction Between Voice and Appearance in the Embodiment of a Robot Tutor

et al. 2017

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Robot embodiment is, by its very nature, holistic and understanding how various aspects contribute to the user perception of the robot is non-trivial. A study is presented here that investigates whether there is an interaction effect between voice and other aspects of embodiment, such as movement and appearance, in a pedagogical setting. An on-line study was distributed to children aged 11-17 that uses a modified Godspeed questionnaire. We show an interaction effect between the robot embodiment and voice in terms of perceived lifelikeness of the robot. Politeness is a key strategy used in learning and teaching, and here an effect is also observed for perceived politeness. Interestingly, participants' overall preference was for embodiment combinations that are deemed polite and more like a teacher, but are not necessarily the most lifelike. From these findings, we are able to inform the design of robotic tutors going forward.

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Children's Responses to Genuine Child Synthesized Speech in Child-Robot Interaction

Cited by 6 publications

References 4 publications

Exploring Gender-Expansive Categorization Options for Robots

Exploring Gender-Expansive Categorization Options for Robots

Voice as a Design Material

The Interaction Between Voice and Appearance in the Embodiment of a Robot Tutor

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