Have you used Siri, Hey Google, or Alexa? These voice-enabled digital assistants are pretty cool and getting smarter, but why do some of them sound more like a “person” than others? What is it about your voice that makes people believe that there is a thinking human being behind it? In this episode I take a look at a research study called “Mistaking Minds: How Speech Affects Dehumanization and Anthropomorphism” to uncover what it is about a voice that makes it more likely that you’ll anthropomorphize it into a real human being?
Resources for this Episode
- Schroeder, J., & Epley, N. (2016). Mistaking minds and machines: How speech affects dehumanization and anthropomorphism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(11), 1427-1437. doi:10.1037/xge0000214. You can download the paper here.
- Juliana Schroeder’s website at the Haas School of Business
