Throwing voices: the psychological impact of the spatial height of projected voices

Communication mediating technologies are throwing our voices away from our bodies in situations ranging from voice conference meetings to mass presentations. Physical height is known to influence dominance in interactions between people [1, 8, 13, 16]. This study explores how audio projection technologies also influence dominance behaviors between people. In an exploratory 2 (betweenparticipants: own voice location set spatially high vs. low) x 2 (within-participants: voice agent set spatially high vs. low) mixed-design experiment (N=64), we investigated the psychological effects of voice location upon collaborative decision-making interactions between people and voice agents. We found evidence that suggests the dominating effects of project voices’ coming from above can be mitigated by hearing one’s own voice projected from above. Author Keywords Throwing voices, vocal height, dominance General Terms: Design, Experimentation, Human Factors ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Inform...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Leila Takayama, Clifford Nass
• Keywords: Communication Mediating Technologies, CSCW 2010, Social Sciences, Voice Agents, Voice Location