Why computer voices are mostly female http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-com... gives a couple of reason, from biology, history and "It's much easier to find a female voice that everyone likes than a male voice that everyone likes"
Interesting. Its also interesting how much of a gender construct can come through. Listening to music often times I can't tell male from female but with spoken words it always seems obvious.
This likely depends on the music genre and voice effects applied to the vocal track.
Usually, telling if a singer is male or female isn't any more difficult than it is for speakers. While in singing there's considerable overlap in ranges between male and female voice types, the overtones produced by a male singer differ from those produced by a female singer. A C5 sung by a tenor will sound very different from a C5 sung by a soprano.
That said, especially in pop music there's the tendency for male singers to use their falsetto register, which tends to sound 'feminine' or androgynous. Moreover, in pop music you also have an abundant use of voice filters and synthesizers such as the infamous vocoders that make distinguishing voice types more difficult.
It may partly be simply because in Star Trek the ship's computer had a female voice. I would guess that many companies do not actually put a great deal of research into selecting the voice, but go with what is familiar without wondering why it was historically done that way and whether or not it was a good idea. When you do research it, there are valid reasons to go with a woman's voice. But I strongly suspect most companies do not actually put substantial resources into the decision.
Anecdotally, I have an instructor whose teaching I can't stand, despite her excellent teaching style, because her voice feels like it's hitting the resonant frequency of my head, and I get a headache after 40 or so minutes.
There is an excellent, if dated, Nova episode called "Top Gun and Beyond" that addresses this. Navy research showed that the (all male) fighter pilots responded much faster to a female voice, so that's what they put in the voice alerts.
This is a minor point in the program, though. It's really one of my favorite Nova episodes and I recommend it to anyone.
I worked on automation of some of the PA announcements used on railway stations in the UK, e.g. "The next train from platform 4 is the...". These were recorded sets of words and phrases that could be concatenated to sound quite natural and the content of most were very dull.
Every sound file was recorded in a male version and a female version although the female was used almost all the time. I asked about this and was told the following:
* Women respond equally to male and female voices
* Men instinctively rebel against petty instruction given in a male voice... unless...
* In a threatening situation (fire, football riot etc) orders in a male voice are trusted more
I don't know how true any of this really is when applied in the real world, but maybe the similar studies have been applied to conversational interfaces.
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 40.5 ms ] threadUsually, telling if a singer is male or female isn't any more difficult than it is for speakers. While in singing there's considerable overlap in ranges between male and female voice types, the overtones produced by a male singer differ from those produced by a female singer. A C5 sung by a tenor will sound very different from a C5 sung by a soprano.
That said, especially in pop music there's the tendency for male singers to use their falsetto register, which tends to sound 'feminine' or androgynous. Moreover, in pop music you also have an abundant use of voice filters and synthesizers such as the infamous vocoders that make distinguishing voice types more difficult.
Lots of [citation needed], but interesting historical background on voice warning systems.
https://www.google.com/search?q=secretary&tbm=isch
https://www.google.com/search?q=assistant&tbm=isch
This is a minor point in the program, though. It's really one of my favorite Nova episodes and I recommend it to anyone.
Every sound file was recorded in a male version and a female version although the female was used almost all the time. I asked about this and was told the following:
* Women respond equally to male and female voices
* Men instinctively rebel against petty instruction given in a male voice... unless...
* In a threatening situation (fire, football riot etc) orders in a male voice are trusted more
I don't know how true any of this really is when applied in the real world, but maybe the similar studies have been applied to conversational interfaces.