为什么智能手机的语音助手都是女声?

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　　If you have a smartphone, you also have your very own digital personal assistant. There's the iPhone's Siri (now added to Apple TV), of course, but don't forget Cortana on the Windows Phone or the S Voice on the Samsung Galaxy¹. All of these virtual voices have one thing in common: They all sound female.

　　倘若你有一部智能手机，那你一定也会有自己的私人专属数码助手。苹果手机上装有Siri语音助手（现今苹果电视上也装有此功能），当然，类似的语音功能软件还有微软手机上的“Cortana”（微软小娜）以及三星“盖乐世”系列手机上的S Voice语音助手功能。但所有的这些虚拟语音功能都有一个共同的特点：均为女性发音。

　　This, as you might've guessed, is no coincidence. Writing for Wired this week, Jessi Hempel explores some of the social-science research on the way people perceive male voices versus² female voices. Take, for example, research conducted by Karl MacDorman, an Indiana University professor who studies human-computer interaction:

　　你可能已经猜到，这些巧合并非偶然。杰西·亨普尔本周在美国《连线》杂志发表了一篇文章，文章写到他对一些社会科学方面的研究进行了调研，比如人们对男性和女性声音的感知方式差异。举个例子，印第安纳大学的一位主要研究人机交互的教授卡尔·麦克道曼曾经进行过这样一个研究：

　　为什么智能手机的语音助手都是女声?

　　He and fellow researchers played clips of male and female voices to people of both genders³, then asked them to identify which they preferred. The researchers also measured the way participants actually responded to the voices. In a 2011 paper, they reported that both women and men said female voices came across as warmer. In practice, women even showed a subconscious⁴ preference for responding to females; men remained subconsciously⁵ neutral. “Men will say they prefer female speech, and women really do prefer it,” MacDorman says.

　　他和和其他研究人员给参与男女两性声音测试的志愿者分别播放了男性声音和女性声音的片段，然后让这些志愿者听完之后确定并选出所喜欢的声音。与此同时，研究人员还对志愿者实对声音的反馈进行了测量。他们曾经在 2011 年的一篇文章中指出，女性和男性志愿者都认为女性的声音听起来比较温暖人心。实验证明，女性志愿者对女性的声音表现出了一种潜意识上的喜好，而男性志愿者则仍潜意识地保持中立。卡尔·麦克道曼教授表示：“男性志愿者总是说他们喜欢女性的声音，但女性志愿者才是真心实意地喜欢女性的声音。

　　Then again, you can't entirely⁶ discount the fact that the Silicon⁷ Valley tech-bros who are designing many of these virtual assistants may be falling back on the “stereotype of a compliant⁸ sidekick,” Hempel concedes. But then again, it will be interesting to watch how these voices evolve alongside the technology. After all, for their app, Domino's went with an affable-sounding dude-voice, which they dubbed⁹ Dom.

　　当然，杰西·亨普尔在文中还提到：我们不能完全否认这样一个事实，即许多来自硅谷的虚拟助手设计师们可能正在陷入“一个兼容的助手”这样一个刻板印象上。不过，能够见证语音技术如何伴随科技不断演变进步，也是件十分有趣的事。毕竟，多米诺(Domino)就在他们的 App 中使用了一名暖男的声音，他们将它命名为 Dom。

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