Abstract
What happens when a virtual character speaks with the cloned voice of a person you know? Our results suggest that such a known-voice clone can subtly shape social perception, but does not reliably transfer the perceived personality of the original speaker to the virtual character. We investigate whether voice cloning can shape the attribution of personality and social traits to a virtual character when that character speaks with a cloned version of a known voice. Across two studies, we compared ratings of an original voice speaker with ratings of a virtual character speaking with either a known-voice clone or an unknown voice. The first study was a pilot in which students were exposed to the voice of their lecturer. The second study was a preregistered follow-up in which content creators’ voices were presented to their respective communities. Participants evaluated personality traits and social characteristics, and we measured how similar these ratings were to those of the original speaker. Quantitative results revealed small and selective effects. In the pilot study, differences emerged for likability and agreeableness, while in the follow-up, effects were observed for extraversion. Qualitative analyses showed a shift in focus away from perceptions of the salience of artificiality and unnaturalness toward the incongruence between voice and visual appearance. Overall, the findings indicate that known-voice cloning is not a general mechanism for personality transfer. Instead, it functions as a weak and context-dependent cue whose influence is constrained by multimodal coherence and users’ expectations. These results provide practical guidance on when known-voice cloning may be beneficial, when it may backfire, and which aspects should be prioritized in the design of embodied voice interfaces.