Text to Speech: Transportation-Imagery Theory and Outcomes of Narrative Delivery Format

Abstract

This project explores how narrative formats facilitate transportation and related phenomena. Over two hundred subjects encountered fictional stories in different iterations: printed text or audiobook delivered by human or synthetic speech. Subjects rated cognitive load, transportation, and enjoyment. Audio-exposed subjects also evaluated their sense of parasocial interaction and motivation to listen to the narrator. The results suggest reading and listening to human speech are similar; synthetic speech yields weaker outcomes. The differences among formats had statistically large effect sizes. Human speech was preferred to synthetic speech, and enjoyment, parasocial interaction, and voice source are the strongest predictors of listening intention.