  Perceptions of gender are a significant aspect of human-human interaction,
and gender has wide-reaching social implications for robots deployed in
contexts where they are expected to interact with humans. This work explored
two flexible modalities for communicating gender in robots--voice and
appearance--and we studied their individual and combined influences on a
robot's perceived gender. We evaluated the perception of a robot's gender
through three video-based studies. First, we conducted a study (n=65) on the
gender perception of robot voices by varying speaker identity and pitch.
Second, we conducted a study (n=93) on the gender perception of robot clothing
designed for two different tasks. Finally, building on the results of the first
two studies, we completed a large integrative video-based study (n=273)
involving two human-robot interaction tasks. We found that voice and clothing
can be used to reliably establish a robot's perceived gender, and that
combining these two modalities can have different effects on the robot's
perceived gender. Taken together, these results inform the design of robot
voices and clothing as individual and interacting components in the perceptions
of robot gender.
