Finding the Right Voice: Exploring the Impact of Gender Similarity and Gender-Role Congruity on the Efficacy of Automated Vehicle Explanations

Abstract

Automated Vehicles (AVs), acting as social robots, hold potential benefits for society. Prior research highlights how AV explanations can enhance passenger trust by clarifying the vehicle's reasoning and actions. However, an underexplored area is the impact of voice gender in AV explanations on this trust dynamic. To bridge this gap, our study, inspired by the gender-role congruity and similarity attraction theories, investigates the impacts of AV voice gender on user trust. The anticipated findings from our research are poised to play a critical role in designing AV explanations that enhance trust, thereby advancing the human-AV interaction landscape.