Studying person perception from voices: Creating common ground by looking beyond accuracy

Abstract

Voice research often focuses on measuring the accuracy of perception. The focus away from looking at accuracy and broadening research questions to investigate subjective perception per se – be the perception accurate or not – may enable us to glean a fuller picture of how listeners try to make sense of the voices they hear in their lives. Such a shift in focus may create common ground for investigating the perception of person characteristics for which accuracy can be determined (e.g. identity, height, age) alongside characteristics for which this is much harder or even impossible to do (e.g. trustworthiness, confidence).