A voice with a New Zealand accent is being developed for robots by Dr Catherine Watson and her research team at the Auckland University. The research is based on accents perceived as trustworthy or authoritative and most easily understood by people.
During the course of the study, Dr Watson along with Dr Broadbent and Dr Tamagawa tested the synthetic robot voice with English, American and New Zealand accents. The robots are being tested for monitoring vital signs and reminding residents in rest homes to take medicines on time.
Accent research conducted earlier revealed that while the American accent was gaining prestige among younger people, the accent considered most prestigious was the British accent. However, during the course of the synthetic test, Dr Watson found that the New Zealand accent was given positive ratings as opposed to research conducted by Dr Donn Bayard from the Otago University in the early 90s, which revealed that New Zealanders displayed a negative attitude towards their native accent.
Test results conducted by the researchers concluded that the New Zealand accent was perceived as less robotic as compared to the American accent. Developed for robots playing a critical role in rest homes, the New Zealand accent was the most preferred.
Source: https://www.auckland.ac.nz