Perception of Paralinguistic Traits in Synthesized Voices

TY - GEN

T1 - Perception of Paralinguistic Traits in Synthesized Voices

AU - Baird, Alice Emily

AU - Hasse Jørgensen, Stina

AU - Parada-Cabaleiro, Emilia

AU - Hantke, Simone

AU - Cummins, Nicholas

AU - Schuller, Bjorn

PY - 2017/8/23

Y1 - 2017/8/23

N2 - Along with the rise of artificial intelligence and the internet-of-things, synthesized voices are now common in daily-life, providing us with guidance, assistance, and even companionship. From formant to concatenative synthesis, the synthesized voice continues to be defined by the same traits we prescribe to ourselves. When the recorded voice is synthesized, does our perception of its new machine embodiment change, and can we consider an alternative, more inclusive form? To begin evaluating the impact of aesthetic design, this study presents a first-step perception test to explore the paralinguistic traits of the synthesized voice. Using a corpus of 13 synthesized voices, constructed from acoustic concatenative speech synthesis, we assessed the response of 23 listeners from differing cultural backgrounds. To evaluate if perception shifts from the defined traits, we asked listeners to assigned traits of age, gender, accent origin, and human-likeness. Results present a difference in perception for age and human-likeness across voices, and a general agreement across listeners for both gender and accent origin. Connections found between age, gender and human-likeness call for further exploration into a more participatory and inclusive synthesized vocal identity.

AB - Along with the rise of artificial intelligence and the internet-of-things, synthesized voices are now common in daily-life, providing us with guidance, assistance, and even companionship. From formant to concatenative synthesis, the synthesized voice continues to be defined by the same traits we prescribe to ourselves. When the recorded voice is synthesized, does our perception of its new machine embodiment change, and can we consider an alternative, more inclusive form? To begin evaluating the impact of aesthetic design, this study presents a first-step perception test to explore the paralinguistic traits of the synthesized voice. Using a corpus of 13 synthesized voices, constructed from acoustic concatenative speech synthesis, we assessed the response of 23 listeners from differing cultural backgrounds. To evaluate if perception shifts from the defined traits, we asked listeners to assigned traits of age, gender, accent origin, and human-likeness. Results present a difference in perception for age and human-likeness across voices, and a general agreement across listeners for both gender and accent origin. Connections found between age, gender and human-likeness call for further exploration into a more participatory and inclusive synthesized vocal identity.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - user studies

KW - human-centered computing

U2 - 10.1145/3123514.3123528

DO - 10.1145/3123514.3123528

M3 - Article in proceedings

BT - Proceedings of the 12th International Audio Mostly Conference

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York

T2 - Audio Mostly

Y2 - 23 August 2017 through 26 August 2017

ER -