research-article

Persuasive Synthetic Speech: Voice Perception and User Behaviour

Authors:

Mateusz Dubiel,

Pilar Oplustil Gallegos,

Simon KingAuthors Info & Claims

CUI '20: Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces

Article No.: 6, Pages 1 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/3405755.3406120

Published: 22 July 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Previous research indicates that synthetic speech can be as persuasive as human speech. However, there is a lack of empirical validation on interactive goal-oriented tasks. In our two-stage study (online listening test and lab evaluation), we compared participants' perception of the persuasiveness of synthetic voices created from speech in a debating style vs. speech from audio-books. Participants interacted with our Conversational Agent (CA) to complete 4 flight-booking tasks and were asked to evaluate the voice, message and perceived personal qualities. We found that participants who interacted with the CA using the voice created from debating style speech rated it as significantly more truthful and more involved than the CA using the audio-book-based voice. However, there was no difference in how frequently each group followed the CA's recommendations. We hope our investigation will provoke discussion about the impact of different synthetic voices on users' perceptions of CAs in goal-oriented tasks.

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cover image ACM Other conferences

CUI '20: Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces

July 2020

271 pages

ISBN:9781450375443

DOI:10.1145/3405755

Conference Chairs:
María Inés Torres,
Stephan Schlögl,
Program Chairs:
Leigh Clark,
Martin Porcheron

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 22 July 2020

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CUI '20

CUI '20: 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces

July 22 - 24, 2020

Bilbao, Spain

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CUI '20 Paper Acceptance Rate 13 of 39 submissions, 33%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 34 of 100 submissions, 34%

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Zargham NDubiel MDesai SMildner TBelz H(2024)Designing AI Personalities: Enhancing Human-Agent Interaction Through Thoughtful Persona DesignProceedings of the International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3701571.3701608(490-494)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3701571.3701608
Pathiyan Cherumanal SScholer FTrippas JSpina D(2024)Towards Investigating Biases in Spoken Conversational SearchCompanion Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction10.1145/3686215.3690156(61-66)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686215.3690156
Frummet ASpeggiorin AElsweiler DLeuski ADalton J(2024)Cooking with Conversation: Enhancing User Engagement and Learning with a Knowledge-Enhancing AssistantACM Transactions on Information Systems10.1145/364950042:5(1-29)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649500
Dubiel MDesai SZargham NSchmitt A(2024)Voicecraft: Designing Task-specific Voice Assistant PersonasProceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces10.1145/3640794.3670000(1-3)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640794.3670000
Pias SHuang RWilliamson DKim MKapadia A(2024)The Impact of Perceived Tone, Age, and Gender on Voice Assistant Persuasiveness in the Context of Product RecommendationsProceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces10.1145/3640794.3665545(1-15)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640794.3665545
Desai SDubiel MLeiva L(2024)Examining Humanness as a Metaphor to Design Voice User InterfacesProceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces10.1145/3640794.3665535(1-15)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640794.3665535
Dubiel MAylett MSchmitt AMa ZHsieh GWambsganss T(2024)Speech as Interactive Design Material (SIDM): How to design and evaluate task-tailored synthetic voices?Companion Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces10.1145/3640544.3645258(131-133)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
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Desai SWei CSin JDubiel MZargham NAhire SPorcheron MKuzminykh ALee MCandello HFischer JMunteanu CCowan B(2024)CUI@CHI 2024: Building Trust in CUIs—From Design to DeploymentExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3636287(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Wei CKim YKuzminykh A(2023)The Bot on Speaking Terms: The Effects of Conversation Architecture on Perceptions of Conversational AgentsProceedings of the 5th International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces10.1145/3571884.3597139(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2023
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