From Voice to Form: How Gender-Ambiguous Voices Shape Physical Robot Design

Robot design often involves gendered choices that shape Human–Robot Interaction. Voice is a key channel through which gendering occurs, yet little is known about how it influences people’s mental images of robots. This study examines how ambiguous, feminine, and masculine voices affect physical robot design. Participants (N = 45) listened to robot voices (ambiguous, feminine, masculine), built a physical prototype, took part in an interview to explain their design process, and concluded by evaluating both the voice and the robot prototype they built. The findings show that although participants’ explicit ratings of the robots showed no differences across conditions, analyses of the physical prototypes and interview data revealed consistent patterns, suggesting that voice strongly shaped design choices. Specifically, we found that ambiguous voices led to less human-like forms and more hybrid human-machine-like and masculine forms, whereas masculine voices encouraged more human-like prototypes. The results suggest that starting robot design from voice, particularly ambiguous voices, helps reduce gendering and fosters more inclusive robots.