Oliver Niebuhr
Biographic Data
| ID | 83213 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Oliver Niebuhr |
| GIVEN NAMES | Oliver |
| FAMILY NAME | Niebuhr |
| SIGNATURE | NIEBUHR O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern Denmark |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8623-1680 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Which Voice for which Robot? Designing Robot Voices that Indicate Robot Size
Many social robots will have the capacity to interact via speech in the future, and thus they will have to have a voice. However, so far it is unclear how we can create voices that fit their robotic speakers. In this article, we explore how robot voices can be designed to fit the size of the respective robot. We therefore investigate the acoustic correlates of human voices and body size. In Study I, we analyzed 163 speech samples in connection wi…
A digital “flat affect”? Popular speech compression codecs and their effects on emotional prosody
Introduction Calls via video apps, mobile phones and similar digital channels are a rapidly growing form of speech communication. Such calls are not only— and perhaps less and less— about exchanging content, but about creating, maintaining, and expanding social and business networks. In the phonetic code of speech, these social and emotional signals are considerably shaped by (or encoded in) prosody. However, according to previous studies, it is …
Charismatic speech features in robot instructions enhance team creativity
This study examines whether a social robot can enable team creativity and increase team performance depending on its speaking style. The aim is to provide insight into human teams' creativity and performance when exposed to different ways of speaking by a social robot, that is, when the robotic creativity facilitator is using different acoustic-prosodic features. In one condition, participants received their instructions from the robot in a “char…
How to motivate with speech. Findings from acoustic phonetics and pragmatics
In the present work, we describe and discuss two studies in the field of motivating-speech research. The studies investigate voice-quality features (study 1) and pragmatic aspects (study 2) in German motivating speech, thereby adding to the current state-of-the-art in understanding motivating speech and language 1 . We find indications that a low amount of breathiness, a more periodic signal and a balanced distribution of specific pragmatic eleme…
Unguided virtual-reality training can enhance the oral presentation skills of high-school students
Public speaking is fundamental in our daily life, and it happens to be challenging for many people. Like all aspects of language, these skills should be encouraged early on in educational settings. However, the high number of students per class and the extensive curriculum both limit the possibilities of the training and, moreover, entail that students give short in-class presentations under great time pressure. Virtual Reality (VR) environments …
Research on Rhetorical Devices in German: The Use of Rhetorical Questions in Sales Presentations
Previous literature recommends using stylistic (or rhetorical) devices in presentations such as rhetorical questions (RQs: Does anyone want bad teeth? ) to make them more professional, to appear more charismatic, and to convince an audience. However, in oral presentations, it is not only the what that matters in using stylistic devices like RQs, but also the how , i.e., the RQs’ prosodic realization. To date, however, virtually no handbook on the…
Case Report: Women, Be Aware that Your Vocal Charisma can Dwindle in Remote Meetings
Remote meetings via Zoom, Skype, or Teams limit the range and richness of nonverbal communication signals. Not just because of the typically sub-optimal light, posture, and gaze conditions, but also because of the reduced speaker visibility. Consequently, the speaker’s voice becomes immensely important, especially when it comes to being persuasive and conveying charismatic attributes. However, to offer a reliable service and limit the transmissio…
Fundamental Aspects in the Perception of f0
This chapter outlines basic characteristics and principles in the perception of f0 and its interplay with other prosodic and segmental elements of speech. It focuses on those theoretical and empirical contributions that are essential for readers to know in order to conduct, interpret, and assess research on prosody and intonation. Thus, it starts with the psychophysical and psychoacoustic aspects of f0 and pitch, and continues with how perceived …
Phonetic Variation in Tone and Intonation Systems
This chapter reviews commonly recurring tendencies in the phonetic realization of tones, both in intonation and in lexical tone systems. It discusses local interactions between tonal targets, such as tonal coarticulation, dissimilatory H-raising, and rightward target displacement. Non-coarticulatory patterns include globally oriented patterns such as declination, look-ahead upstep, and final lowering as well as interactions between tone and the s…
What Makes Business Speakers Sound Charismatic: A
Phonetic research on the prosodic sources of perceived charisma has taken a big step towards making a speaker's tone-of-voice a tangible, quantifiable, and trainable matter. However, the tone-of-voice includes a complex bundle of acoustic features, and a lot of parameters have not even been looked at so far. Moreover, all previous studies focused on political or religious leaders and left aside the large field of managers and CEOs in the world of…
Speech Melody Matters—How Robots Profit from Using Charismatic Speech
In this article, we address to what extent the proverb “the sound makes the music” also applies to human-robot interaction, and whether robots could profit from using speech characteristics similar to those used by charismatic speakers like Steve Jobs. In three empirical studies, we investigate the effects of using Steve Jobs’ and Mark Zuckerberg's speech characteristics during the generation of robot speech on the robot's persuasiveness and its …
Challenges in studying prosody and its pragmatic functions: Introduction toJipaspecial issue
The impetus for this special issue was an all-day event at the 2015 meeting of the International Pragmatics Association: The Panel on Prosodic Constructions in Dialog. This event had several motivations: (i) we have enormous data sets and tools to process them, but as a field we lack clear roadmaps for how to exploit these sets and tools to improve our understanding; (ii) we know that prosody is more than just the single stream of intonation, but…
On the Intonation of German Intonation Questions: The Role of the Prenuclear Region
German questions and statements are distinguished not only by lexical and syntactic but also by intonational means. This study revisits, for Northern Standard German, how questions are signalled intonationally in utterances that have neither lexical nor syntactic cues. Starting from natural productions of such ‘intonation questions’, two perception experiments were run. Experiment I is based on a gating paradigm, which was applied to naturally pr…
Perception of phonetic detail in the identification of highly reduced words
On place assimilation in sibilant sequences-Comparing French and English
Intonationsfragen hinterfragt – Die Vielschichtigkeit der prosodischen Unterschiede zwischen Aussage- und Fragesätzen mit deklarativer Syntax
Declarative questions are defined as questions that are phonetically marked, rather than syntactically or lexically. They are conceptualized as being distinguished from statements by a rise in intonation at the end of the sentence. However, observations of spontaneous dialogue in which declarative utterances with terminal falling intonation are also employed and recognized as questions appear to contradict this concept. Against this backdrop, our…
Perzeption und kognitive Verarbeitung der Sprechmelodie: Theoretische Grundlagen und Empirische Untersuchungen
The study presented here is concerned with the speech melody of (Standard) German and examines three central units of speech melody which occur with stressed words. They convey attitudinal meanings which indicate whether what is being said in the speaker’s argument should be interpreted as given, new or unexpected.
On the Intonation of German Intonation Questions: The Role of the Prenuclear Region
German questions and statements are distinguished not only by lexical and syntactic but also by intonational means. This study revisits, for Northern Standard German, how questions are signalled intonationally in utterances that have neither lexical nor syntactic cues. Starting from natural productions of such ‘intonation questions’, two perception experiments were run. Experiment I is based on a gating paradigm, which was applied to naturally pr…
Perception of phonetic detail in the identification of highly reduced words
Speech Melody Matters—How Robots Profit from Using Charismatic Speech
In this article, we address to what extent the proverb “the sound makes the music” also applies to human-robot interaction, and whether robots could profit from using speech characteristics similar to those used by charismatic speakers like Steve Jobs. In three empirical studies, we investigate the effects of using Steve Jobs’ and Mark Zuckerberg's speech characteristics during the generation of robot speech on the robot's persuasiveness and its …
On place assimilation in sibilant sequences-Comparing French and English
Challenges in studying prosody and its pragmatic functions: Introduction toJipaspecial issue
The impetus for this special issue was an all-day event at the 2015 meeting of the International Pragmatics Association: The Panel on Prosodic Constructions in Dialog. This event had several motivations: (i) we have enormous data sets and tools to process them, but as a field we lack clear roadmaps for how to exploit these sets and tools to improve our understanding; (ii) we know that prosody is more than just the single stream of intonation, but…
Perzeption und kognitive Verarbeitung der Sprechmelodie: Theoretische Grundlagen und Empirische Untersuchungen
The study presented here is concerned with the speech melody of (Standard) German and examines three central units of speech melody which occur with stressed words. They convey attitudinal meanings which indicate whether what is being said in the speaker’s argument should be interpreted as given, new or unexpected.
Intonationsfragen hinterfragt – Die Vielschichtigkeit der prosodischen Unterschiede zwischen Aussage- und Fragesätzen mit deklarativer Syntax
Declarative questions are defined as questions that are phonetically marked, rather than syntactically or lexically. They are conceptualized as being distinguished from statements by a rise in intonation at the end of the sentence. However, observations of spontaneous dialogue in which declarative utterances with terminal falling intonation are also employed and recognized as questions appear to contradict this concept. Against this backdrop, our…
Perception of phonetic detail in the identification of highly reduced words
On place assimilation in sibilant sequences-Comparing French and English
On the Intonation of German Intonation Questions: The Role of the Prenuclear Region
German questions and statements are distinguished not only by lexical and syntactic but also by intonational means. This study revisits, for Northern Standard German, how questions are signalled intonationally in utterances that have neither lexical nor syntactic cues. Starting from natural productions of such ‘intonation questions’, two perception experiments were run. Experiment I is based on a gating paradigm, which was applied to naturally pr…
Challenges in studying prosody and its pragmatic functions: Introduction toJipaspecial issue
The impetus for this special issue was an all-day event at the 2015 meeting of the International Pragmatics Association: The Panel on Prosodic Constructions in Dialog. This event had several motivations: (i) we have enormous data sets and tools to process them, but as a field we lack clear roadmaps for how to exploit these sets and tools to improve our understanding; (ii) we know that prosody is more than just the single stream of intonation, but…
Speech Melody Matters—How Robots Profit from Using Charismatic Speech
In this article, we address to what extent the proverb “the sound makes the music” also applies to human-robot interaction, and whether robots could profit from using speech characteristics similar to those used by charismatic speakers like Steve Jobs. In three empirical studies, we investigate the effects of using Steve Jobs’ and Mark Zuckerberg's speech characteristics during the generation of robot speech on the robot's persuasiveness and its …
Fundamental Aspects in the Perception of f0
This chapter outlines basic characteristics and principles in the perception of f0 and its interplay with other prosodic and segmental elements of speech. It focuses on those theoretical and empirical contributions that are essential for readers to know in order to conduct, interpret, and assess research on prosody and intonation. Thus, it starts with the psychophysical and psychoacoustic aspects of f0 and pitch, and continues with how perceived …
Phonetic Variation in Tone and Intonation Systems
This chapter reviews commonly recurring tendencies in the phonetic realization of tones, both in intonation and in lexical tone systems. It discusses local interactions between tonal targets, such as tonal coarticulation, dissimilatory H-raising, and rightward target displacement. Non-coarticulatory patterns include globally oriented patterns such as declination, look-ahead upstep, and final lowering as well as interactions between tone and the s…
What Makes Business Speakers Sound Charismatic: A
Phonetic research on the prosodic sources of perceived charisma has taken a big step towards making a speaker's tone-of-voice a tangible, quantifiable, and trainable matter. However, the tone-of-voice includes a complex bundle of acoustic features, and a lot of parameters have not even been looked at so far. Moreover, all previous studies focused on political or religious leaders and left aside the large field of managers and CEOs in the world of…
Case Report: Women, Be Aware that Your Vocal Charisma can Dwindle in Remote Meetings
Remote meetings via Zoom, Skype, or Teams limit the range and richness of nonverbal communication signals. Not just because of the typically sub-optimal light, posture, and gaze conditions, but also because of the reduced speaker visibility. Consequently, the speaker’s voice becomes immensely important, especially when it comes to being persuasive and conveying charismatic attributes. However, to offer a reliable service and limit the transmissio…
How to motivate with speech. Findings from acoustic phonetics and pragmatics
In the present work, we describe and discuss two studies in the field of motivating-speech research. The studies investigate voice-quality features (study 1) and pragmatic aspects (study 2) in German motivating speech, thereby adding to the current state-of-the-art in understanding motivating speech and language 1 . We find indications that a low amount of breathiness, a more periodic signal and a balanced distribution of specific pragmatic eleme…
Unguided virtual-reality training can enhance the oral presentation skills of high-school students
Public speaking is fundamental in our daily life, and it happens to be challenging for many people. Like all aspects of language, these skills should be encouraged early on in educational settings. However, the high number of students per class and the extensive curriculum both limit the possibilities of the training and, moreover, entail that students give short in-class presentations under great time pressure. Virtual Reality (VR) environments …
Research on Rhetorical Devices in German: The Use of Rhetorical Questions in Sales Presentations
Previous literature recommends using stylistic (or rhetorical) devices in presentations such as rhetorical questions (RQs: Does anyone want bad teeth? ) to make them more professional, to appear more charismatic, and to convince an audience. However, in oral presentations, it is not only the what that matters in using stylistic devices like RQs, but also the how , i.e., the RQs’ prosodic realization. To date, however, virtually no handbook on the…
Which Voice for which Robot? Designing Robot Voices that Indicate Robot Size
Many social robots will have the capacity to interact via speech in the future, and thus they will have to have a voice. However, so far it is unclear how we can create voices that fit their robotic speakers. In this article, we explore how robot voices can be designed to fit the size of the respective robot. We therefore investigate the acoustic correlates of human voices and body size. In Study I, we analyzed 163 speech samples in connection wi…
A digital “flat affect”? Popular speech compression codecs and their effects on emotional prosody
Introduction Calls via video apps, mobile phones and similar digital channels are a rapidly growing form of speech communication. Such calls are not only— and perhaps less and less— about exchanging content, but about creating, maintaining, and expanding social and business networks. In the phonetic code of speech, these social and emotional signals are considerably shaped by (or encoded in) prosody. However, according to previous studies, it is …
Charismatic speech features in robot instructions enhance team creativity
This study examines whether a social robot can enable team creativity and increase team performance depending on its speaking style. The aim is to provide insight into human teams' creativity and performance when exposed to different ways of speaking by a social robot, that is, when the robotic creativity facilitator is using different acoustic-prosodic features. In one condition, participants received their instructions from the robot in a “char…
Computer Science (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Linguistics (10 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Speech recognition (6 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (5 works) · Charisma (4 works) · Digital Communication and Language (4 works) · German (4 works)