The Manipulative Power of Voice Characteristics: Investigating Deceptive Patterns in Mandarin Chinese Female Synthetic Speech

TL;DR

This study systematically investigates how subtle voice characteristics in Mandarin Chinese female synthetic speech can manipulate user behavior, revealing significant effects influenced by voice features and context, with implications for ethical voice design.

Contribution

It is the first empirical study to analyze voice characteristic-based manipulation in Mandarin Chinese female synthetic speech, highlighting factors affecting effectiveness and user perception.

Findings

Significant behavioral manipulation up to +2027.6%.

Effectiveness varies with voice features and scenario.

User perception mediates manipulation effectiveness.

Abstract

Pervasive voice interaction enables deceptive patterns through subtle voice characteristics, yet empirical investigation into this manipulation lags behind, especially within major non-English language contexts. Addressing this gap, our study presents the first systematic investigation into voice characteristic-based dark patterns employing female synthetic voices in Mandarin Chinese. This focus is crucial given the prevalence of female personas in commercial assistants and the prosodic significance in the Chinese language. Guided by the conceptual framework identifying key influencing factors, we systematically evaluate effectiveness variations by manipulating voice characteristics (five characteristics, three intensities) across different scenarios (shopping vs. question-answering) with different commercial aims. A preliminary study (N=24) validated the experimental materials and the main study (N=36) revealed significant behavioral manipulation (up to +2027.6%). Crucially, the analysis showed that effectiveness varied significantly with voice characteristics and scenario, mediated by user perception (of tone, intonation, timbre) and user demographics (individual preferences, though limited demographic impact). These interconnected findings offer evidence-based insights for ethical design.