Mind The Voice!: Effect of Robot Voice Pitch, Robot Voice Gender, and User Gender on User Perception of Teleoperated Robots

Abstract

It is important for communication robots to offer an enjoyable interaction experience while being reasonably persuasive. It has been suggested that robots speaking in a high pitch could be perceived as more attractive than those speaking in a low pitch. However, it is not clear whether the use of a high-pitched voice favors teleoperated robots as well. In principle, teleoperated robots could be perceived differently than autonomous robots because they embody a human agent. To investigate this aspect, we conducted a 2 (voice pitch: original vs. high) × 2 (voice gender: male vs. female) × 2 (user gender: male vs. female) between-participants experiment to study the effects of the robot voice pitch, robot voice gender, and user gender on the attitudinal responses of the users toward a teleoperated robot and the associated decision-making. It was observed that the male and female participants perceived a high-pitched voice differently. The users' awareness of the robot being teleoperated and persuasiveness of the robot were noted to be related, which may provide a plausible explanation for the interaction effects between the voice pitch and user gender.