Voice features of telephone operators predict auditory preferences of consumers

Vanessa André (), Christine Petr (), Nicolas André (), Martine Hausberger () and Alban Lemasson ()
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Vanessa André: EthoS - Ethologie animale et humaine - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Christine Petr: Institut de Management de Bretagne Sud - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud, LEGO - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion de l'Ouest - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IBSHS - Institut Brestois des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UBO - Université de Brest - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]
Nicolas André: EthoS - Ethologie animale et humaine - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Martine Hausberger: EthoS - Ethologie animale et humaine - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Alban Lemasson: EthoS - Ethologie animale et humaine - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: What makes a human voice agreeable is a matter of scientific discussion. Whereas prosody was shown to play a role regarding "male-female" attraction, the impact of frequency modulations in "non-sexual", notably commercial, contexts has attracted little attention. Another point unaddressed in the literature is auditory sensitivity to short-term frequency modulations as current studies focus more on sentence. Thirty French female operators were recorded over the phone. All "bonjour" greeting words were classified in terms of frequency modulation linearity and orientation at the syllable and word levels. Then, the different voices were played back to students and seniors who had to rate each voice according to their degree of agreeableness. Listeners preferred non-monotonous voices. Differences between age-classes were greater than between sex-classes. Results suggest that short-term frequency changes are important for auditory evaluation of voice agreeableness. This study opens new research perspectives concerning the importance of prosody during consumer-seller interactions.

Keywords: phone interaction; human; acoustic structure; prosody; voice perception; Consumer behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10-07
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Published in Interaction Studies, 2016, 17 (1), pp.77-97. ⟨10.1075/is.17.1.04and⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01335965

DOI: 10.1075/is.17.1.04and

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