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bktheirregularApparently there's questions pinging around the internet about why the new iPhone's voice-response system uses a female voice. I've heard explanations ranging from practical to traditional to flat-out chauvanist, but kept waiting for one possible explanation that hasn't popped up yet.
(I'm reconstructing this from memory, so there's a good chance I've got some of it wrong.)
Maybe 20, 30 years ago, the Air Force decided to use voice warnings in the F-16. I remember playing F-16 simulators back in the day, and when I was in a dangerous flight attitude, the voice would call out: "Pull up! Pull up!" It was a female voice, apparently nicknamed "Bitchin' Betty".
The logic I heard back then was that the female voice would cut through sound clutter better than a male voice; easier to distinguish, easier to comprehend, more effective at getting the information to the pilot.
In more recent time, I picked up a game at discount: Crysis. Aside from being the most ridiculously future-proof PC game to be released in the last decade or so (seriously, mainstream computers are only now catching up to its capabilities at full power), it's a game that puts the player into the shoes of a soldier in a powered armor suit. The suit has voice warning call-outs ... which can be selected from the game-options screen in either a male voice or a female voice.
Maybe it was a design choice, but the male voice is deep and rumbling, while the female voice is somewhere between a contralto and an alto. Or something like that.
The promotional videos and such for the game all used the rumbling male voice. When I played, I found that the male voice prompts got lost in the audio clutter. The higher female voice, however, cut through the background noise more clearly.
That was my observation, anyway. Remarkably unscientific, your mileage will probably vary widely, etcetera, etcetera, yada, yada, yada...
(I'm reconstructing this from memory, so there's a good chance I've got some of it wrong.)
Maybe 20, 30 years ago, the Air Force decided to use voice warnings in the F-16. I remember playing F-16 simulators back in the day, and when I was in a dangerous flight attitude, the voice would call out: "Pull up! Pull up!" It was a female voice, apparently nicknamed "Bitchin' Betty".
The logic I heard back then was that the female voice would cut through sound clutter better than a male voice; easier to distinguish, easier to comprehend, more effective at getting the information to the pilot.
In more recent time, I picked up a game at discount: Crysis. Aside from being the most ridiculously future-proof PC game to be released in the last decade or so (seriously, mainstream computers are only now catching up to its capabilities at full power), it's a game that puts the player into the shoes of a soldier in a powered armor suit. The suit has voice warning call-outs ... which can be selected from the game-options screen in either a male voice or a female voice.
Maybe it was a design choice, but the male voice is deep and rumbling, while the female voice is somewhere between a contralto and an alto. Or something like that.
The promotional videos and such for the game all used the rumbling male voice. When I played, I found that the male voice prompts got lost in the audio clutter. The higher female voice, however, cut through the background noise more clearly.
That was my observation, anyway. Remarkably unscientific, your mileage will probably vary widely, etcetera, etcetera, yada, yada, yada...
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Date: 2011-10-28 03:07 am (UTC)The logic I heard back then was that the female voice would cut through sound clutter better than a male voice; easier to distinguish, easier to comprehend, more effective at getting the information to the pilot.
Huh. I should ask Dad about this when he's up to thinking about it - wonder if the Army ever made similar observations or rationalizations. (He worked in hearing conservation for the army for years.)
your mileage will probably vary widely
True. I can't help but think if they used, say, Gilbert Gottfried for the male voice and Bea Arthur for the female voice, the results might have been different. And I would have just stopped playing the game with the male voice prompts entirely after too long...
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Date: 2011-10-28 03:54 am (UTC)