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We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right, and I have no idea why you're being downvoted.

My best guess is that something I type triggers someone's preconceptions about a topic and then they reflexively seek solace in the down triangle. Edit: Or, perhaps, they are rate-limited by HN and can only use the triangles?

I did not downvote your above comments, but I can see why others might. Your argument, while perhaps not intended to, parallels a standard trolling technique of asking for evidence and then dismissing any information presented. You complain about one study not being broad enough, about others for being behind a paywall, and still others for being on twitter. Ultimately, the standard you ask for ("this pattern has only been observed with women", and, "this pattern has only been seen with men") is unreasonably restrictive, as if a pattern that was only 99% reliable in separating men from women would not be sufficient. It makes it appear (again, this may not be true, it's just the appearance) that you're not making a good-faith effort to evaluate information fairly, but are instead holding firm to a preconception and requiring extraordinary proof before being willing to reconsider. Your snarky "triggers ... preconceptions" response does not help this perception (and, FWIW, I did downvote this comment, because your "guess" is of negative value -- it only serves to upset your supporters and anger your detractors.)

EDIT: also FWIW, I would love to see good data about potential differences in vocal patterns in males and females, if for no other reason than that I could use it in my D&D campaign.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#152
post #100

>"Contrary to what we expected (and probably contrary to what you expected as well!), masking gender had no effect on interview performance." I've seen quite a few studies pointing out this "confidence gap" now. They have shown women to be less confident, and it shows in their actions and speaking patterns. I still hear these speaking patterns even in the voice modulated versions-- statements sounding like questions…

That's why the President spoke last week about how we should be raising boys to have less confidence.

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Women can have more confidence without men having less confidence. It's not a finite resource.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#154
post #15

I would really have liked to see them check whether the gender-blinding actually worked. Even if someone's voice is modulated, they may have gendered behavior patterns that could influence someone's performance ratings. I wouldn't be surprised if I could guess the gender of a voice-modulated person pretty accurately from other cues. To combat this, they could have asked the interviewer during the performance assessme…

:3

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#155
post #42
post #15

I would really have liked to see them check whether the gender-blinding actually worked. Even if someone's voice is modulated, they may have gendered behavior patterns that could influence someone's performance ratings. I wouldn't be surprised if I could guess the gender of a voice-modulated person pretty accurately from other cues. To combat this, they could have asked the interviewer during the performance assessme…

I think it would be amazing if they could combine this voice-modulation technology with a facial motion capture technology (like in Avatar) to display artificial/shifting faces as well as voices. You could effectively create a computer screen-based version of the "scramble suit" used in A Scanner Darkly! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/mediaviewer/rm1872861440 I think a combined face+voice system would be even mo…

IIRC studies have indicated that (be it for genetic or cultural reasons), women tend to be more facially expressive than men.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#157
post #100

>"Contrary to what we expected (and probably contrary to what you expected as well!), masking gender had no effect on interview performance." I've seen quite a few studies pointing out this "confidence gap" now. They have shown women to be less confident, and it shows in their actions and speaking patterns. I still hear these speaking patterns even in the voice modulated versions-- statements sounding like questions…

> "less confident" This is not a gendered issue. Men who act less confident are at least as disadvantaged. > "confidence / frowned upon" Also not primarily a gendered issue. Men who are not perceived as having the status to be confident get pounced on as hard or harder. This appears to have a lot to do with physical size. Tall men are "leaders", small men have a "napoleon complex". etc. Considering women are statisti…

Women in general have less confidence than men. (Study: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspp0000078.pd...) That is a gender-specific gap in confidence.

That doesn't mean that there are no men with less-than-average confidence out there. Nor does it mean that there are no men who have a hard time because of said lack of confidence.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#158
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While interesting, that's a very particular definition of "productive" - male lawyers billed more hours. That doesn't necessarily correspond to more actual work done.

Depends what you mean by "productive" - if the law firm makes more money off of male lawyers, that would mean they are more "productive"

Directly, perhaps. What if the women were doing non-billable work that enabled their colleagues to bill more combined total hours than they would have had she done billable work instead?

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#159

Hi Aline! Great read, as always. I had a couple of thoughts while reading: 1) One of the things you mentioned was that men whose voices were modulated to sound like women tended to score better than women whose voices were modulated to sound like men. Do you think that's because the men actually performed better than women, or do you think it's possible that interviewers have a lower set of expectations for female in…

> "1) One of the things you mentioned was that men whose voices were modulated to sound like women tended to score better than women whose voices were modulated to sound like men. Do you think that's because the men actually performed better than women, or do you think it's possible that interviewers have a lower set of expectations for female interviewees? Or some other reason? My hypothesis at this point is that, all other things being equal, it seems like if an interviewer expects you to do poorly because of an unconscious bias against women, and you actually do perfectly average, the interviewer might rate you higher simply because you surprised him. Does that make sense?"

I was actually expecting this even before reading the results. I believe this is because most companies try to have gender balance which tend to result in females being hired with lesser "score" than males, simply because of disparity between in pool male and female candidates available (even if you consider they perform equally well).

Also I would say this is a bias towards females not against.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#160
post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

I'm no expert, but isn't "let's just hire only women for a while to balance out the numbers" going to violate a whole bunch of employment regulations?

Yeah, but who cares?

I'm not making a normative statement here, I'm simply stating the fact that no one will come after you if you do this. Companies and colleges say all the time that they're looking for a specific ratio of races and genders and nothing happens to them.

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