Collaborative Research: Acoustic Properties, Listener Perceptions, and Outcomes of Interactions between Survey Interviewers and Sample Persons

虽然抽样调查是社会科学研究方法的基石之一，但被抽样者的参与率正在大幅下降。本项目研究参与横断面随机数字拨号(RDD)电话调查。这些下降导致了研究费用的显著增加，以至于正在认真考虑终止基本调查。RDD合作率的一个很大的差异来源是面试官。在集中式电话面谈设施中，面试者经常被分配到类似的混合案例，但得到的回复率却非常不同。所有产生参与RDD调查的决定的刺激都必须通过音频渠道传递--通过文字、音调、音调和采访者讲话的节奏。这些属性不是调查方法学家传统的研究对象。因此，该项目结合了语音科学、语音学、心理语言学和调查方法论的见解。一个中心概念框架利用了协作二元通信中的剪裁、收敛和相似性等伴随概念。5,000份RDD电话采访者介绍的数字音频录音(来自两个数据收集组织、6个不同的调查和165个不同的采访者)被转换成适用于响应倾向的动态和静态统计模型的量化数据集。使用Praat声学软件提取由语音科学中的概念激发的声学测量；评分者使用杠杆的两个核心概念-突显理论和社会心理学来判断说话者的感知属性；从音频文件的转录中提取单词和不流利度。产生的数据集是一个关系型数据集，其中包含面试者、被调查者(案例)、联系人和对话话轮等级别的记录。使用组合概念框架构建了分层模型和生存模型，预测了样本案例的最终参与决策。虽然这项研究强调基础科学，但它具有潜在的实践成果。学术调查研究是美国150亿美元商业研究行业的重要工具；该项目的成功可以为这一商业部门的健康发展做出贡献。

While the sample survey is one of the cornerstones of social science research methods, the tool is experiencing large declines in participation of sampled persons. This project studies participation in cross-section Random-Digit Dialed (RDD) telephone surveys. The declines have led to such significant research cost increases that serious consideration of terminating basic surveys is occurring. One large source of variation in RDD cooperation rates is the interviewer. In centralized telephone interviewing facilities interviewers are often assigned similar mixes of cases, yet obtain very different response rates. All the stimuli yielding a decision to participate in an RDD survey must be delivered through audio channel - through words, pitch, inflection, and pacing of the interviewers' speech. These attributes are not the traditional objects of study of survey methodologists. Hence, the project combines insights from speech science, phonetics, psycholinguistics, and survey methodology. A central conceptual framework utilizes the companion notions of tailoring, convergence, and similarity in cooperative dyadic communication. 5,000 digital audio recordings of RDD telephone interviewer introductions (from two data collection organizations, 6 different surveys, and 165 different interviewers) are transformed into a quantitative data set suitable for dynamic and static statistical models of response propensities. Acoustic measures motivated by concepts from speech science are extracted using Praat acoustic software; raters make judgments of perceived attributes of speakers using both concepts central to leverage-salience theory and the social psychology; and word and disfluency rates are extracted from transcriptions of the audio files. The resulting data set is a relational one with records at the levels of the interviewer, respondent (case), contact, and conversational turn. Hierarchical and survival models are built using the combined conceptual frameworks predicting the final participation decision of a sample case. While the research emphasizes basic science, it has potential practical outcomes. Academic survey research is a crucial tool for a $15 billion commercial research industry in the US; this project's success can contribute to the health of this commercial sector.