Language technologies have a racial bias, committing greater errors for Black users than for white users. However, little work has evaluated what effect these disparate error rates have on users themselves. The present study aims to understand if speech recognition errors in human-computer interactions may mirror the same effects as misunderstandings in interpersonal cross-race communication. In a controlled experiment (N=108), we randomly assigned Black and white participants to interact with a voice assistant pre-programmed to exhibit a high versus low error rate. Results revealed that Black participants in the high error rate condition, compared to Black participants in the low error rate condition, exhibited significantly higher levels of self-consciousness, lower levels of self-esteem and positive affect, and less favorable ratings of the technology. White participants did not exhibit this disparate pattern. We discuss design implications and the diverse research directions to which this initial study aims to contribute.

翻译：语言技术存在种族偏见，对黑人用户的错误率显著高于白人用户。然而，鲜有研究评估这些差异化错误率对用户本身产生的影响。本研究旨在探讨人机交互中的语音识别错误是否可能产生与跨种族人际沟通误解相同的效应。通过一项受控实验（N=108），我们随机分配黑人与白人参与者与预设高/低错误率的语音助手进行交互。结果显示，与低错误率条件下的黑人参与者相比，高错误率条件下的黑人参与者表现出显著更高的自我意识水平、更低的自尊水平和积极情感，以及对技术的评价更差。白人参与者未呈现这种差异化模式。我们讨论了该初始研究旨在贡献的设计启示及多元研究方向。