Exploring prosodic markers for sociability, engagement and trust in human and robot speech.
Research interests
My broad research interest lies in the amazing capabilities that humans have to convey a very wide range of meanings with only a limited set of available phonemes and with very small changes in the speech signal. I find it extremely fascinating how such minimal changes – which very often a third party listener barely notices – are perceived and immediately and unconsciously reacted upon by the listener they are directed to.
More specifically, at the moment I am looking at trust attributions to different voices, with the aim of improving Human Robot Interactions. Using a methodology derived from Game Theory, I am conducting behavioural experiments to collect implicit measures of trust (in the form of monetary investments) to virtual/robotic players associated with different voices.
Publications
- Ilaria Torre & Frank Loesche (2016). Overcoming Impasses in Conversations: A Creative Business. Creativity. Theories-Research-Applications 3(2).
- Ilaria Torre, Laurence White, Jeremy Goslin (2016). Behavioural mediation of prosodic cues to implicit judgements of trustworthiness. In Proceedings from the 8th Speech Prosody Conference (SpeechProsody 2016).
- Ilaria Torre, Jeremy Goslin, Laurence White (2015). Investing in accents: How does experience mediate trust attributions to different voices?. In Proceedings from the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, (ICPhS-15 Glasgow). Supplemental data
- Ilaria Torre, Jeremy Goslin, Laurence White (2015). The effect of experience on trust attributions varies between two British accents. Proceedings from the 4th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues & Practices (EPIP4, Prague), pp. 146-148.
- Ilaria Torre (2014). Production and Perception of Smiling Voice. Proceedings of the first Postgraduate and Academic Researchers in Linguistics at York (PARLAY 2013), pp. 100-117.
Education
- 2012-2013 - MA Phonetics and Phonology University of York (pass with merit)
- 2011 - Summer School “Aphasia: Language and the Brain” Utrecht University
- 2009-2011 -BA Languages and Linguistic Sciences Catholic University of Milan (110/110 cum laude)
-
Awards
- ISCA grant to partially cover registration at ExLing 2017.
- ISCA grant to cover registration at Speech Prosody 2016.
- Santander Internationalisation Mobility Support Scholarship to fund a one-month research visit in Mons.
Academic membership
Secondment
Thanks to a Santaner scholarship, I have been able to spend one month visiting the TCTS lab at the Faculté Polytechnique at the University of Mons (Belgium). I was there from 27/08/2016 until 02/10/2016.
Workshops and conference attendance
- Talk entitled "Playing the trust game with talkative robots" presented at the highlight workshop "Using robots to study speech" at the 8th Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics (Hersonissos, Crete, 19-22 June 2017).
- Poster "Perseverance in game theory: People just don't give up on nasty game partners" presented at the 9th Plymouth University School of Psychology Conference; winner of the 1st prize for best poster presentation (06/06/17)
- Poster "Framing the Impasse: A conversational-creative approach" presented at 1st UK Creativity Conference (Edinburgh, 17/05/2017)
- Poster presented at the 8th Speech Prosody conference (Boston, 31 May - 3 June 2016)
- CogNovo Neural Basis for Creativity Workshop (25/04/2016 - 29/04/2016)
- CogNovo Scientific Mythologies Workshop (25/01/2016 - 29/01/2016)
- 15th eNTERFACE workshop (Mons, August 2015)
- International Workshop on Speech Robotics (Dresden, 11 September 2015)
- Presenter at two panels at Off the Lip Conference (Plymouth, 7-11 September 2015)
- Poster presented at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (Glasgow, 10-14 August 2015)
- Poster presented at the 7th Plymouth University School of Psychology Conference; winner of the 2nd prize for best poster presentation (08/06/15 - 09/06/15)
- CogNovo Entrepreneurship Workshop (27/04/15 - 01/05/15)
- Bootstrapping and Bayesian Inference course (May 2015)
- Talk presented at the 4th International Conference on English Pronunciation (Prague, 21-23 May 2015)
- Bayesian Inference course (February 2015)
- CogNovo Public Outreach and Social Innovation Workshop (26/01/15 – 30/01/15)
- Poster presented at the INSPIRE workshop (London, 22 January 2015)
- CogNovo Computational Modelling Workshop (22/09/14 – 26/09/14)
- Talk presented at the 3rd Swiss Workshop on Prosody (Geneva, 10-11 September 2014)
- CogNovo Research Methods Workshop (28/04/14 - 02/05/14)
- CogNovo Prezi Workshop (20/06/2014)
- CogNovo Experimental Methods Workshop (23/06/14 - 27/06/14)
Public engagement
- I presented a demo of one of my experiments at Off the Lip 2016
- I presented a demo of one of my experiments at Plymouth Robotics Day (30/06/2016)
- CogNovo Cabaret at Rumpus Cosy (30/01/2015). I presented my research in the style of the "Split or Steal" part of the "Golden Balls" TV show, but with golden brains!
Roles in CogNovo
- Organizing Committee, ColLaboratoire Summer School. Work started in January 2016 and the summer school took place successfully in August 2016. Some enthusiastic feedback from our students can be found here.
- Cake Director – founder and current organizer of Cake Thursday (a weekly event that happens right after WHAT's UP).
- CogNovo representative in the period April 2014 – January 2015.
