Comparing the Effectiveness of Speech and Physiological Features in Explaining Emotional Responses during Voice User Interface Interactions

Abstract

The rapid rise of voice user interface technology has changed the way users traditionally interact with interfaces, as tasks requiring gestural or visual attention are swapped by vocal commands. This shift has equally affected designers, required to disregard common digital interface guidelines in order to adapt to non-visual user interaction (No-UI) methods. The guidelines regarding voice user interface evaluation are far from the maturity of those surrounding digital interface evaluation, resulting in a lack of consensus and clarity. Thus, we sought to contribute to the emerging literature regarding voice user interface evaluation and, consequently, assist user experience professionals in their quest to create optimal vocal experiences. To do so, we compared the effectiveness of physiological features (e.g., phasic electrodermal activity amplitude) and speech features (e.g., spectral slope amplitude) to predict the intensity of users’ emotional responses during voice user interface interactions. We performed a within-subjects experiment in which the speech, facial expression, and electrodermal activity responses of 16 participants were recorded during voice user interface interactions that were purposely designed to elicit frustration and shock, resulting in 188 analyzed interactions. Our results suggest that the physiological measure of facial expression and its extracted feature, automatic facial expression-based valence, is most informative of emotional events lived through voice user interface interactions. By comparing the unique effectiveness of each feature, theoretical and practical contributions may be noted, as the results contribute to voice user interface literature while providing key insights favoring efficient voice user interface evaluation.