Your Robot, My Voice: Enhancing Android Robot Likability through Personalization by Cloning the User’s Voice

Abstract

This study investigates whether personalized voice cloning can improve a robot’s likability compared to a design-congruent voice and a distinctly dissimilar voice. Participants interacted with a gender-ambiguous android robot in three different voice conditions. We compared: (1) a personalized voice clone based on the participant’s voice, (2) a design-congruent voice matching the robot’s appearance, and (3) a dissimilar voice, which differs from both the participant’s and the robot’s features.The cloned and design-congruent voices significantly increased likability compared to the dissimilar voice, while anthropomorphism and familiarity showed no significant differences across conditions. Most participants did not immediately recognize their cloned voice until informed that one of the voices was a clone. However, most of the participants were successful when asked to pick out their cloned voice from those used. We assume that voice personalization through similarity to the user improves likability even before the user is aware of this similarity.Our results show that personalized voice cloning is a simple alternative to other methods for the design of robotic voices. It significantly increases robot likability while requiring minimal user effort.