Voice and Image: A Pilot Study

음성과 인상의 관계규명을 위한 실험적 연구

When we hear someone's voice, even without having met the person before, we usually make up a certain mental image of the person. This study aims at investigating the relationship between the voice and the image information carried within the voice. Does the mental picture created by the voice closely reflect the real image and if not, is it related with the real image at all\ulcorner To answer the first question, a perception experiment was carried out. Speech samples reading a short sentence from 8 males and 8 females were recorded and pictures of subjects were also taken. Ajou University students were asked to participate in the experiment to match the voice with the corresponding picture. Participants in the experiment correctly match 1 female voice and 4 male voices with their corresponding pictures. However, it is interesting to note that even in cases of mismatch, the results show that there is a very strong tendency. In other words, even though participants falsely match a certain voice with a certain picture, majority of them chose the same picture for the voice. It is the case for all mismatches. It seems that voice does give the listener a certain impression about physical characteristics even if it might not be always correct. By showing that there is a clear relationship between voice and image, this study provides a starting point for further research on voice characteristics: what characteristics of the voice carry the relevant information\ulcorner This kind of study will contribute toward the understanding of the affective domain of human voice and toward the speech technology.