Gender and task effects of human – machine communication on trusting a Korean intelligent virtual assistant

This study investigated the impact of task types (functional vs. social) and the gendered voices (female vs. male) of Siri, an intelligent virtual assistant (IVA), on social presence and trust perceptions toward the IVA. In an online experiment involving 172 participants, individuals were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, interacting with Siri on their iPhones for various task inquiries. Results from multivariate analyses of covariances revealed significant differences in trust levels based on the type of task. Trust was found to be higher for functional tasks when assisted by Siri, compared to social tasks. However, there was no significant difference in trust based on Siri's gendered voices. Post-hoc analyses indicated significant interactions between the gender match of participants and Siri's gendered voices in two dimensions of trust. Men tended to trust the male-voiced Siri more than the female-voiced Siri, while women did not exhibit a preference for the female voice over the male voice. This study successfully replicated the task effect observed in prior research but did not replicate the gender effect. Key distinctions between the current study and previous ones include language and the participants' nationality, with this study focusing on Korean participants interacting with Korean Siri.