The Perception and Parameters of Intentional Voice Manipulation

Hughes, Susan M.; Mogilski, Justin K.; Harrison, Marissa A.

doi:10.1007/s10919-013-0163-z

Cited by 69 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 63 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Whereas other research has examined how mean level pitch affects trait-based evaluations of others (Addington, 1968;Collins & Missing, 2003;Feinberg et al, 2008;Gregory & Webster, 1996;Hughes et al, 2014;Jones, Feinberg, DeBruine, Little, & Vukovic, 2010;Laplante & Ambady, 2003;Niedzielski, 1999;Ray & Ray, 1990;Tigue, Borak, O'Connor, Schandl, & Feinberg, 2012), our results suggest that variability in pitch may convey the existence of humanlike mental capacities, leading observers to infer a human source. People naturally modulate their pitch when expressing thoughts; pitch rises when asking a question, falls when expressing sadness, and generally fluctuates as people reason and express ideas with enthusiasm and emotion.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 95%

“…Based on prior literature examining how paralinguistic cues affect trait-based impression (e.g., Addington, 1968;Collins & Missing, 2003;Gregory & Webster, 1996;Hughes, Mogilski, & Harrison, 2014;Jones, Feinberg, DeBruine, Little, & Vukovic, 2010;Laplante & Ambady, 2003;Niedzielski, 1999), we extracted the following cues using Praat software (Boersma & Weenink, 2016): mean pitch, mean amplitude, SD of pitch, SD of amplitude, speech length, and mean pause length for each of the 20 voice clips.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mistaking minds and machines: How speech affects dehumanization and anthropomorphism.

Schroeder

Epley

2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Treating a human mind like a machine is an essential component of dehumanization, whereas attributing a humanlike mind to a machine is an essential component of anthropomorphism. Here we tested how a cue closely connected to a person’s actual mental experience—a humanlike voice—affects the likelihood of mistaking a person for a machine, or a machine for a person. We predicted that paralinguistic cues in speech are particularly likely to convey the presence of a humanlike mind, such that removing voice from communication (leaving only text) would increase the likelihood of mistaking the text’s creator for a machine. Conversely, adding voice to a computer-generated script (resulting in speech) would increase the likelihood of mistaking the text’s creator for a human. Four experiments confirmed these hypotheses, demonstrating that people are more likely to infer a human (vs. computer) creator when they hear a voice expressing thoughts than when they read the same thoughts in text. Adding human visual cues to text (i.e., seeing a person perform a script in a subtitled video clip), did not increase the likelihood of inferring a human creator compared with only reading text, suggesting that defining features of personhood may be conveyed more clearly in speech (Experiments 1 and 2). Removing the naturalistic paralinguistic cues that convey humanlike capacity for thinking and feeling, such as varied pace and intonation, eliminates the humanizing effect of speech (Experiment 4). We discuss implications for dehumanizing others through text-based media, and for anthropomorphizing machines through speech-based media.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 95%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mistaking minds and machines: How speech affects dehumanization and anthropomorphism.

Schroeder

Epley

2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Similar subtle modulation in voices might be expected in courtship contexts. In fact, there is evidence of vocal differences between speech directed towards romantic partners and same-sex friends which can be detected by listeners (Farley, Hughes, & LaFayette, 2013), and intentional voice manipulations make female voices, but not male voices, sound more attractive (Hughes, Mogilski, & Harrison, 2013; see also Fraccaro et al, 2013). Indeed, such modulations occur in other species including frogs (Ryan, 1980), koalas, Phascolarctos cinereus (Charlton, Ellis, Brumm, Nilsson, & Fitch, 2012), fallow deer, Dama dama (Charlton & Reby, 2011), red deer, Cervus elaphus (Reby et al, 2005;Reby, Charlton, Locatelli, & McComb, 2010), and birds.…”

Section: Accepted M Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocal modulation during courtship increases proceptivity even in naive listeners

Leongoméz

Binter

Kubicová

et al. 2014

Evolution and Human Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Speakers modulate their voice when talking to infants, but we know little about subtle variation in acoustic parameters during speech in adult social interactions. Because tests of perception of such variation are hampered by listeners' understanding of semantic content, studies often confine speech to enunciation of standard sentences, restricting ecological validity. Furthermore, apparent paralinguistic modulation in one language may be underpinned by specific parameters of that language. Here we circumvent these problems by recording speech directed to attractive or unattractive potential partners or competitors, and testing responses to these recordings by naive listeners, across both a Germanic (English) and a Slavic (Czech) language. Analysis of acoustic parameters indicates that men's voices varied F 0 most in speech towards potential attractive versus unattractive mates, while modulation of women's F 0 variability was more sensitive to competitors, with higher variability when those competitors were relatively attractive. There was striking similarity in patterns of social context-dependent F 0 variation across the two model languages, with both men's and women's voices varying most when responding to attractive individuals. Men's minimum pitch was lower when responding to attractive than unattractive women. For vocal modulation to be effective, however, it must be sufficiently detectable to promote proceptivity towards the speaker. We showed that speech directed towards attractive individuals was preferred by naive listeners of either language over speech by the same speaker to unattractive individuals, even when voices were stripped of several acoustic properties by low-pass filtering, which renders speech unintelligible. Our results suggest that modulating F 0 may be a critical parameter in human courtship, independently of semantic content.

show abstract

“…Remez, Fellowes & Rubin 1997) Second, vocal signals are not exclusively produced in a neutral voice. On the one hand, humans can readily change their voices volitionally, for example to convey particular social traits (Cartei, Cowles, & Reby, 2012;Hughes, Mogilski, & Harrison, 2014) and in audience-dependent ways (e.g. the exaggerated pitch contours of infantdirected speech; Shute & Wheldall, 1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impaired generalization of speaker identity in the perception of familiar and unfamiliar voices.

Lavan

Scott

McGettigan

2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2 behavioral experiments, we explored how the extraction of identity-related information from familiar and unfamiliar voices is affected by naturally occurring vocal flexibility and variability, introduced by different types of vocalizations and levels of volitional control during production. In a first experiment, participants performed a speaker discrimination task on vowels, volitional (acted) laughter, and spontaneous (authentic) laughter from 5 unfamiliar speakers. We found that performance was significantly impaired for spontaneous laughter, a vocalization produced under reduced volitional control. We additionally found that the detection of identity-related information fails to generalize across different types of nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., laughter vs. vowels) and across mismatches in volitional control within vocalization pairs (e.g., volitional laughter vs. spontaneous laughter), with performance levels indicating an inability to discriminate between speakers. In a second experiment, we explored whether personal familiarity with the speakers would afford greater accuracy and better generalization of identity perception. Using new stimuli, we largely replicated our previous findings: whereas familiarity afforded a consistent performance advantage for speaker discriminations, the experimental manipulations impaired performance to similar extents for familiar and unfamiliar listener groups. We discuss our findings with reference to prototype-based models of voice processing and suggest potential underlying mechanisms and representations of familiar and unfamiliar voice perception.

show abstract

The Perception and Parameters of Intentional Voice Manipulation

Cited by 69 publications

References 63 publications

Mistaking minds and machines: How speech affects dehumanization and anthropomorphism.

Mistaking minds and machines: How speech affects dehumanization and anthropomorphism.

Vocal modulation during courtship increases proceptivity even in naive listeners

Impaired generalization of speaker identity in the perception of familiar and unfamiliar voices.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About