Is a dialect speaking robot more easily accepted by the elderly?

Does technology become more accessible, in particular for the elderly, if it uses regional language? In this interdisciplinary project we developed two synthetic voices, one in the local language “Grunnegs” and one in Dutch using speech donors and integrated them into the commercial robot “Pepper”. Respondents in a field study trusted the robot talking regional language more than the robot speaking Dutch because the regional robot voice is evaluated as better understandable, more natural, and more pleasant. Unexpectedly, the robot speaking regional language is also perceived as more eerie than the robot speaking Dutch, undermining trust in the robot.