Emily Sands

Since 2016 I have been researching the topic of Spontaneous Trait Inference (STI) through vocal features (prosody). Specifically, I consider the importance of prosody within the STI framework by attempting to answer four fundamental questions: (a) Can listeners reliably infer a variety of traits from vocal features? (b) What are the acoustic parameters that enable such inferences? (c) How does  social context affect and interact with prosodic parameters during trait inferences? (d) Can we determine patterns in prosodic features that can be generated by a speaker that promote a specific trait inference?  Results are discussed within the context of humanizing synthetic voices through the morphing of vocals for mechanization.