sum reactions synthetic speech number weeks ago asked informally people reactions synthetic speech also prerecorded speech studies emotional reactions synthetic speech wish thank responded osamu fujimura margaret jackman randall major corey miller johanna rubba stephen p spackman hoped responses started collect information friends colleagues well realized need structured way gathering info possiblitiy rather informal approach matter may suddenly turn formal study respondents react positively negatively synthetic speech one may irritated bluntness machine lack flexibility programs etc still find synthetic vocal information handy per egil heggtveit telenor norway received list references synthetic speech none stuides cover emotional reactions osamu fujimura wrote suggest ask question marian macchi responded following two us telephone companies introduced service called reverse directory assistance available telephone customers telephone service whereby customer calls special number enters telephone number using touchtone pad hears name address person telephone number listed speech synthesizer orator textto speech synthesizer developed bellcore used speak name address introduction automated service one telephone companies offered service real human operators today complaint rate customers higher service offered real operators say use synthetic speech always acceptable fact many applications synthetic speech adopted becasue speech sounds robotic margaret jackman wrote experience synthetic vocies telephone information system asks name address person want phone number always annoyed since know usually repeat real person later also annoyed voice mail systems go forever giving 10 different options instead voice operator puts person want suppose problem nt synthetic language generally clear concise problem get one generally wastes time reason negative reaction randall major wrote sure worked reactions try contacting barbara grosz grosz eecs harvard edu done lot work synthetic speech may able help good luck contacted barbara grosz wrote sorry done experiments sort though done work speech synthesis colleague julia hirschberg att research may know research arena though nt believe done either nt contacted julia hirschberg yet intend corey miller wrote may want look article perception synthetic speech david pisoni progress speech synthesis van santen sproat olive hirschberg springer 1997 tried get copy article university library book recent told copies available yet johanna rubba wrote personal reaction synthetic voice phone negative experience offense company involved care enough real person staffing phone line rather downsize replace people machines irritation going able get questions answered going obliged follow inflexible program set corporation inevitably welldesgined waste customer time also experience irritation synthetic voices sound like real voices meaning put forth extra effort parse output also perfectionist nt understand even relatively simple things like normal list intonation weird system used nonsynthetic prerecorded directory assistance systems cant gotten right know enough computational linguistics know achieving realsounding synthetic speech extremely difficulty esp context taken account excuse ugly synthetic speech think really need synthetic speech oh negative experience low level curiosity amusement hearing much sound real speech designers managed capture artificial speech particular distortions found synthetic speech intro ling students love mimic synthetic speech point things like stress intonation think progress made area sure recognize flat syllabletimed nasal voice thought good use synthetic speech like word processor auditory editor reads texts back though speech flaws terribly bad useful function eyes longer capable seeing errors note like interaction get choose use nt expect conversation finally stephen spackman wrote like machines use bank machines instead live tellers whenever practical nt bear directly query maybe talking someone wants listen 1 deception machine announce ideally going boing something starts talk extremely annoying find trying talk machine thinking human find otherwise feel stupid annoyed wasted effort even answering machine messages problem 2 machines excused clearing throats saying hello boing may even preferable ahem mentioned nearly died fright computer behind darkened room deserted bulding 3am suddenly said printer paper extremely calm pleasant voice inadequate warning 3 machines excused boundary markers one things loathe automated directory assistance systems talking clocks use recorded digits positions makes extremely hard copy numbers know right well simply annoying even separate final nonfinal digits would improvement actually less problem synthesised speech partly synthesis systems likely contour partly sound uniformly bad rather atrociously edited 4 machines excused rephrasing computer reading phone numbers say seven two _ six _ one _ three _ zero _ three _ asked repeat use seven twentysix thirteen oh three 5 speech recognition systems present fail consistently speakers statistics successfully completed transactions may looking great customers effectively faced termination service specifically wrong synthetic speech total absence pragmatic markers every level poor pitch contours lack interactive adaptation interlocutor every level poorly modelled interaction adjacent segments decreases noise immunity rather increasing matter one engineering intuitions might say thanks respondents bente bente henrikka moxness research assistant dept linguistics ntnu norwegian university science technology 7055 dragvoll norway tel 47 73 59 15 16 fax 47 73 59 61 19 email benmox alfa itea ntnu