If you have a smartphone, you also have your very own digital personal assistant. There’s the iPhone’s Siri (now added to Apple TV), of course, but don’t forget Cortana on the Windows Phone or the S Voice on the Samsung Galaxy. All of these virtual voices have one thing in common: They all sound female.
倘若你有一部智能手機(jī)，那你一定也會(huì)有自己的私人專屬數(shù)碼助手。蘋(píng)果手機(jī)上裝有Siri語(yǔ)音助手（現(xiàn)今蘋(píng)果電視上也裝有此功能），當(dāng)然，類似的語(yǔ)音功能軟件還有微軟手機(jī)上的“Cortana”（微軟小娜）以及三星“蓋樂(lè)世”系列手機(jī)上的S Voice語(yǔ)音助手功能。但所有的這些虛擬語(yǔ)音功能都有一個(gè)共同的特點(diǎn)：均為女性發(fā)音。

This, as you might’ve guessed, is no coincidence. Writing for Wired this week, Jessi Hempel explores some of the social-science research on the way people perceive male voices versus female voices. Take, for example, research conducted by Karl MacDorman, an Indiana University professor who studies human-computer interaction:
你可能已經(jīng)猜到，這些巧合并非偶然。杰西·亨普爾本周在美國(guó)《連線》雜志發(fā)表了一篇文章，文章寫(xiě)到他對(duì)一些社會(huì)科學(xué)方面的研究進(jìn)行了調(diào)研，比如人們對(duì)男性和女性聲音的感知方式差異。舉個(gè)例子，印第安納大學(xué)的一位主要研究人機(jī)交互的教授卡爾·麥克道曼曾經(jīng)進(jìn)行過(guò)這樣一個(gè)研究：

He and fellow researchers played clips of male and female voices to people of both genders, then asked them to identify which they preferred. The researchers also measured the way participants actually responded to the voices. In a 2011 paper, they reported that both women and men said female voices came across as warmer. In practice, women even showed a subconscious preference for responding to females; men remained subconsciously neutral. “Men will say they prefer female speech, and women really do prefer it,” MacDorman says.
他和其他研究人員給參與男女兩性聲音測(cè)試的志愿者分別播放了男性聲音和女性聲音的片段，讓這些志愿者聽(tīng)完之后確定并選出所喜歡的聲音。與此同時(shí)，研究人員還對(duì)志愿者對(duì)聲音的反饋進(jìn)行了測(cè)量。他們?cè)?2011 年的一篇文章中指出，女性和男性志愿者都認(rèn)為女性的聲音聽(tīng)起來(lái)比較溫暖人心。實(shí)驗(yàn)證明，女性志愿者對(duì)女性的聲音表現(xiàn)出了一種潛意識(shí)上的喜好，而男性志愿者則仍潛意識(shí)地保持中立?？枴溈说缆淌诒硎荆骸澳行灾驹刚呖偸钦f(shuō)他們喜歡女性的聲音，但女性志愿者才是真心實(shí)意地喜歡女性的聲音。

Then again, you can’t entirely discount the fact that the Silicon Valley tech-bros who are designing many of these virtual assistants may be falling back on the “stereotype of a compliant sidekick,” Hempel concedes. But then again, it will be interesting to watch how these voices evolve alongside the technology. After all, for their app, Domino’s went with an affable-sounding dude-voice, which they dubbed Dom.
當(dāng)然，杰西·亨普爾在文中還提到：我們不能完全否認(rèn)這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)，即許多來(lái)自硅谷的虛擬助手設(shè)計(jì)師們可能正在陷入“一個(gè)兼容的助手”這樣一個(gè)刻板印象上。不過(guò)，能夠見(jiàn)證語(yǔ)音技術(shù)如何伴隨科技不斷演變進(jìn)步，也是件十分有趣的事。畢竟，多米諾(Domino)就在他們的 App 中使用了一名暖男的聲音，他們將它命名為 Dom。

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