Sympathische synthetische Stimmen: Herausforderungen und Nutzen für die Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion

Abstract Synthetic voices are increasingly integrated into everyday interactions, ranging from navigation systems in our cars and voice assistants in our homes to social robots in elderly care and nursing homes. Despite their prevalence, our understanding of their potential remains incomplete. This study aims to address fundamental questions regarding synthetic voices and their ability to evoke sympathy to enhance human-machine interaction. Specifically, exploring questions like: How can we engender likability for disembodied devices, such as voice assistants, that solely communicate through voice? What are the social challenges that might arise when developing sympathetic female voices for voice assistants? And in which domains can likable voices significantly improve human-machine interaction? This article sheds light on this proverbial black box by examining different fundamental frequencies (F0) in human and synthetic voices, with the aim of identifying a potential “golden frequency”, the ultimate likable frequency. For this goal two perceptions studies were conducted: The first experiment (N=107) is conducted as a pilot study to explore likability in human female voices, while the second experiment (N=435) extends the investigation to synthetic female voices, on which will be the main focus in this article. The results revealed that female human voices were perceived as most likable at a frequency around 260 Hz, which coincides with what former studies concluded as the most attractive frequency as well. However, this does not hold true for female synthetic voices, where a vertex becomes evident already around 240 Hz. These findings bear interesting implications for the future of human-machine interaction, offering noteworthy applications in various realms of human-computer interaction (HCI) and human-robot interaction (HRI). These applications extend to (personal) assistance systems, e-learning, and educational contexts, with particular significance in healthcare and nursing homes.