Finding its Voice: The Influence of Robot Voice on Fit, Social Attributes, and Willingness to Use Among Older Adults in the U.S. and Japan

Robots may be able to significantly assist older adults through making activity recommendations. Prior research suggests that gender and age of a robot’s voice may affect how people respond to such recommendations, but few studies have explored how a robot’s voice is perceived by older adults, and whether their perceptions differ across cultures. We conducted a survey study with older adult participants (aged 65+) in the U.S. (N=225) and Japan (N=466), asking them to evaluate a humanoid robot speaking with three different voices (male, female, child). After seeing a video of a robot making recommendations, participants rated the fit of the voice to the robot, its sociality (via the Robotic Social Attributes Scale - RoSAS), and their willingness to use the robot in various contexts. We discovered that robot’s social attributes and participants’ culture impacted willingness to use the robot in both countries. Having positive social attributes and lower negative attributes increases willingness to use the robot. The U.S. older adults preferred the adult robot voices, had more positive social attributes, less negative social attributes, and were more likely to accept lifestyle recommendations than Japanese older adults. This study contributes to our understanding of older adults’ perceptions of robot voice and provides design implications for robots that make recommendations to older adults.