Anthropomorphize me! - Effects of Robot Gender on Listeners' Perception of the Social Robot NAO in a Storytelling Use Case

Social robots have started taking on storytelling, an age-old human tradition. However, the narrator's voice is central in storytelling and a robot cannot match the capabilities of human voice modulation, which might affect the perception of the robot by the listener. Using a robot and gendered voice as a medium for storytelling, we take a first step towards identifying effects of narrators' voice on anthropomorphism. We examine the robot's perceived anthropomorphism and the influence of its voice (female, male, or neutral) on recipients' attitude towards the robotic storyteller concerning gender and cross-gender effects. In addition, transportation indicating the quality of storytelling is investigated. We found no significant results, neither for attitudes toward the robot nor for transportation. Our gender-based voice manipulation did not affect the storytelling process. A lack of anthropomorphism of the robot may explain these findings and should be investigated in further studies.