Is a joke funnier if it is told by a man? A novel paradigm using AI-generated voices

Resumen

The stereotype that “men are funnier than women” is culturally pervasive. In a large preregistered online study (n = 966), we asked participants to rate the funniness of 12 jokes delivered by a male or female AI-generated voice (they only rated jokes by one apparent gender). To control for differences in delivery, cadence, and intonation, we used a speech-to-speech transformation to transform jokes spoken by a female into a male version and vice versa. Using a Bayesian analysis, we found strong evidence that the apparent gender of the speaker does not affect the perceived funniness of the joke (BF = 0.023). We found no interaction between the original and apparent voice gender on masculinity ratings, indicating that vocal gender cues were effectively eliminated when voices were transformed to the opposite gender, reinforcing the merit of this gender manipulation method.

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Cómo citar (APA 7)

Zhao, A., & Zietsch, B. (2025). Is a joke funnier if it is told by a man? A novel paradigm using AI-generated voices. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/754ce