WHY A FEMALE VOICE?
As movies like Her—starring
Joaquin Phoenix as a writer who
strikes up an unlikely relationship
with his OS, voiced by Scarlett
Johannsson—continue to
demonstrate the reaches and
limitations of technology, we
are left with a question: why are
so many systems characterised
by the female voice?
It may not be as sexist as you
think: research has proven that
both men and women find a
female’s voice more pleasant.
Female voices have been used
for much longer than iPhone
has been around, with some
sources claiming that women’s
voices were used in airplane
cockpits because they stood
out amoung the male pilots.
Nearly all GPS navigation systems
have a default female voice,
although with most you have the
option to use a male voice instead.Karen Jacobsen’s
voice has been
used in 400
million devices
worldwide,
including the
voice of Siri for
the Apple iPhone
in Australia.
June 2018 | VENTURE Success | 39