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Conveying emotion in robotic speech: Lessons learned | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore

Conveying emotion in robotic speech: Lessons learned


Abstract:

This research explored whether robots can use modern speech synthesizers to convey emotion with their speech. We investigated the use of MARY, an open source speech synth...Show More

Abstract:

This research explored whether robots can use modern speech synthesizers to convey emotion with their speech. We investigated the use of MARY, an open source speech synthesizer, to convey a robot's emotional intent to novice robot users. The first experiment indicated that participants were able to distinguish the intended emotions of anger, calm, fear, and sadness with success rates of 65.9%, 68.9%, 33.3%, and 49.2%, respectively. An issue was the recognition rate of the intended happiness statements, 18.2%, which was below the 20% level determined for chance. The vocal prosody modifications for the expression of happiness were adjusted and the recognition rates for happiness improved to 30.3% in a second experiment. This is an important benchmarking step in a line of research that investigates the use of emotional speech by robots to improve human-robot interaction. Recommendations and lessons learned from this research are presented.
Date of Conference: 25-29 August 2014
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 20 October 2014
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Conference Location: Edinburgh, UK

References

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