Neil Kirk

🧠 Is your mindset making you more vulnerable to AI voice-based deception?

I've got a new pre-print out: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in MINDSET

Thread below 👇

#AI #Voice #Cybersecurity #Fraud #Psychology 1/11

Very grateful to @the-sipr.bsky.social for funding this important work. 11/11

💡 Why it matters: This could have real-world implications for designing public awareness campaigns and scam prevention messages. 10/11

🏠 Take-Home Message: Simply telling people that AI voices can speak with a Scottish accent/dialect was far more effective than warning them to be vigilant. 9/11

However, an explicit vigilance-based nudge warning about the dangers of AI voices and urging listeners “if in doubt, think AI” had no effect, unless paired with the capability message about AI’s linguistic abilities. 8/11

A positively framed nudge highlighting AI’s capability to reproduce underrepresented accents and dialects significantly reduced this bias – in other words, changing their MINDSET made them more vigilant towards AI voices using these varieties. 7/11

In this manuscript, I investigate whether simple informational nudges can shift these assumptions and reduce the bias for responding “Human”. Across two experiments, participants categorised voices as either Human or AI. 6/11

Yet that assumption could be putting some language communities at greater risk of AI voice-based deception if they believe a voice speaking that way must be a real person. 5/11

In my new paper, I introduce the concept of MINDSET: Minority, Indigenous, Non-standard, and Dialect-Shaped Expectations of Technology. It reflects the idea that people assume AI can’t convincingly reproduce underrepresented ways of speaking. 4/11

I also suspect this is not unique to Scotland, but part of a global pattern affecting communities whose voices have historically been excluded from these systems. 3/11

My previous work showed that listeners were more likely to believe an AI voice was a real human when it spoke in a local dialect. I think this happens because we’re not used to speech technology understanding these varieties - never mind speaking them! 2/11

🧠 Is your mindset making you more vulnerable to AI voice-based deception?

I've got a new pre-print out: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in MINDSET

Thread below 👇

#AI #Voice #Cybersecurity #Fraud #Psychology 1/11

New achievement unlocked - delivering the oration for Brian Cox. I didn’t faint, nor did he use any of his famous catchphrases on me. Success!

<em>British Journal of Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library Self-cues such as one's own name or face attract attention, reflecting a bias for stimuli connected to self to be prioritized in cognition. Recent evidence suggests that even external voices can elic...

Read the paper here 👇🏻 bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Made another wee video about one of our recently published papers…

… or take Monday off. (Yes that was me).

I’m on TikTok and Instagram @ drspeakmind - please give me a follow and see how well you can spot AI voices! 🗣️

Three-panel composite image of a man completing a muddy obstacle course: left shows him gripping gymnastic rings mid-air, center captures him grimacing while emerging from muddy water beneath a black pipe, and right shows him smiling and soaked after finishing an icy water-based challenge.

“Enjoying” some time off work #ToughMudder

🎓 Fully funded PhD at Abertay University & SIPR: Enabling People to Identify Deepfakes. £20,780/year, fees paid, starts Oct 2025. Use eye-tracking to research deepfake detection. Apply by 30 June 👉 www.abertay.ac.uk/about/workin... #PhD #Cybersecurity #Deepfakes

Me holding my Nintendo Switch 2 console

It’s always lovely to receive a “to me, love from me, well done on finishing your marking” present.

Mr Predator and Mrs Prey: Gender Stereotypes in Children's Films Correlate With Explicit and Implicit Gender Stereotyping Children acquire gender stereotypes at a young age and these subsequently influence cognition and behavior. Stereotypes may be learned through a child's direct observation of gender differences as we....

🚨New publication... Children's films contain innacurate gender stereotypes and these corresespond to children's (and adult's) implicit and explicit gendered associations.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Read thread for more details...

This might make some language communities more vulnerable to AI voice-based deception. Luckily I’ve been given some funding to investigate this further, so watch this space!

Do they factor self-indulgent puntastic titles into REF scores? I sure hope so! 😄

This might make some language communities more vulnerable to AI voice-based deception. Luckily I’ve been given some funding to investigate this further, so watch this space!

But this bias was stronger in a regional dialect for those who were more familiar with it.

I think this is because prior experiences with voice technology that doesn’t represent (or understand) regional or minority language varieties made listeners think “AI can’t speak like that”…

In two experiments I showed that listeners had a bias towards responding “human” when asked to identify if a voice was a natural human speaker or had been augmented by AI to change the voice into a new vocal identity…

“Eh? Aye!”: Categorisation bias for natural human vs AI-augmented voices is influenced by dialect Advances in AI-assisted voice technology have made it easier to clone or disguise voices, creating a wide range of synthetic voices using different ac…

I’m extremely chuffed my new paper “Eh? Aye!”: Categorisation bias for natural human vs AI-augmented voices is influenced by dialect” has just been published in Computers in Human Behavior: Artifical Humans.

(and not just because my best work is in the title!)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Never knew hearing a Drag Queen play a medley of 90s dance hits on the saxophone could be so healing 🧘‍♂️

Scholarship Under Autocracy We Have Been Here Before

I wrote this for my US friends and colleagues, but also for all of us. Lessons from the past. open.substack.com/pub/verakemp...

<em>British Journal of Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library Self-cues such as one's own name or face attract attention, reflecting a bias for stimuli connected to self to be prioritized in cognition. Recent evidence suggests that even external voices can elic...

🗣️ Do you like the sound of your own voice?

🤖 Would you use an AI clone of your voice in a video game, a personal voice assistant or even your Sat Nav?

Usually when I ask this question, most people say "no." But what if I told you that your brain is naturally wired to prefer your own voice?