How do voice acoustics affect the perceived trustworthiness of a speaker? A systematic review.

Trust is a multidimensional and dynamic social and cognitive construct, considered the glue of society. Gauging someone’s perceived trustworthiness is essential for forming and maintaining healthy relationships across various domains. Humans have become adept at inferring such traits from speech for survival and sustainability. This skill has extended to the technological space, giving rise to humanlike voice technologies. The inclination to assign personality traits to these technologies suggests that machines may be processed along similar social and vocal dimensions as human voices. Given the increasing prevalence of voice technology in everyday tasks, this systematic review examines the factors in the psychology of voice acoustics that influence listeners’ trustworthiness perception of speakers, be they human or machine. Overall, this systematic review has revealed that voice acoustics impact perceptions of trustworthiness in both humans and machines. Specifically, combining multiple acoustic features through multivariate methods enhances interpretability and yields more balanced findings compared to univariate approaches. Focusing solely on isolated features like pitch often yields inconclusive results when viewed collectively across studies without considering other factors. Crucially, situational, or contextual factors should be utilised for enhanced interpretation as they tend to offer more balanced findings across studies. Moreover, this review has highlighted the significance of cross-examining speaker-listener demographic diversity, such as ethnicity and age groups; yet, the scarcity of such efforts accentuates the need for increased attention in this area. Lastly, future work should involve listeners’ own trust predispositions and personality traits with ratings of trustworthiness perceptions.