Abstract
Speech adaptations occur frequently in the presence of perceived communication barriers. Modern technological advancements have brought with them new interlocutors for human speakers with the introduction of voice-AI assistants. Findings have shown that voice-AI-directed speech is characterised by an increase in vocal effort resulting from the presumed capabilities of these systems for understanding speech. However, studies focus solely on voice-AI assistants which perform speech recognition. In this study, we present an acoustic analysis of speaker interactions with two voice-AI systems with different goals (speech interpretation vs. speaker verification). Using f0 mean and range as acoustic correlates of vocal effort, we found that speakers show some evidence of increased vocal effort towards voice-AI systems regardless of final task, however, this is enhanced by speech intelligibility goals. This finding is interpreted to suggest that voice-AI-directed speech globally exhibits increased vocal effort, but task plays a clear role in the extent of this.
Bradshaw, Leah