Speaker Accommodations towards VUI Voices on the dimensions of Voice Onset Time and Pitch Range

Authors

  • Gracellia Purnomo University of British Columbia
  • Chloë Farr University of Victoria
  • Charissa Purnomo University of British Columbia
  • Nicole Ebbutt University of British Columbia
  • Amanda Cardoso University of British Columbia
  • Bryan Gick University of British Columbia

Abstract

Previous research has found evidence of speech accommodation between human interlocutors [Lindblom, B. (1990). Speech Production and Speech Modeling] particularly in the dimensions of voice onset time (VOT) [Asano, Y., & Gubian, M. (2018). Speech Communication] and pitch range [Oviatt, S., Maceachern, M., & Levow, G.-A. (1998). Speech Communication]. With the growing presence and integration of voice user interfaces (VUI), inanimate devices which use human voices, the question arises of whether accommodation is present when the interlocutor is a VUI, and whether perceived animacy further influences this. Thirteen prompts were read by twenty-seven participants over Zoom who then heard synthetic speech responses from two voices believed to be active VUIs. These voices were produced using Amazon AWS Polly and differed in perceived animacy, a “human-like voice” and a “robotic voice” each manipulated to have shorter and longer VOT and different pitch range respectively. Pitch and VOT of the participants’ directives were analysed. Current findings suggest that participants do not accommodate VOTs to either voice, and that participants’ pitch patterns diverge from the VUIs pitch range. These preliminary results suggest that phonetic characteristics are employed differently in communication towards VUIs.

Author Biographies

Gracellia Purnomo, University of British Columbia

School of Audiology and Speech Sciences

Chloë Farr, University of Victoria

Department of Linguistics

Charissa Purnomo, University of British Columbia

Department of Linguistics

Nicole Ebbutt, University of British Columbia

Department of Linguistics

Amanda Cardoso, University of British Columbia

Department of Linguistics

Bryan Gick, University of British Columbia

Department of Linguistics

Additional Files

Published

2021-08-18

How to Cite

1.
Purnomo G, Farr C, Purnomo C, Ebbutt N, Cardoso A, Gick B. Speaker Accommodations towards VUI Voices on the dimensions of Voice Onset Time and Pitch Range. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2021 Aug. 18 [cited 2024 Oct. 7];49(3):48-9. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/3917

Issue

Section

Proceedings of the Acoustics Week in Canada

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