Deepfake Voices Deceive People But Not The Brain

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) The brain reacts differently to artificially imitated voices than to real ones. This happens even if people do not recognise the so-called deepfake voices as fake, according to a study by the University of Zurich in the journal Communications Biology.

This content was published on June 12, 2024 - 12:39 2 minutes Keystone-SDA/ts

• Deutsch de Deepfake-Stimmen täuschen Menschen – nicht aber das Gehirn Original Read more: Deepfake-Stimmen täuschen Menschen – nicht aber das Gehir

Check out our selection of newsletters. Subscribe here .

Deepfake technologies can imitate a person's unique voice profile very accurately. This is used, for example, for fraud attempts on the telephone, the university wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

For the study, the researchers recorded the voices of four male speakers and converted them into deepfake voices using computer algorithms. Twenty-five test subjects had to decide whether two voices they heard were identical or whether one of them was a deepfake voice.

In two-thirds of cases, the deepfake identities were correctly assigned.“This illustrates that although actual deepfake voices do not perfectly mimic identity, they have the potential to deceive people's perceptions,” first author Claudia Roswandowitz was quoted as saying in the press release.

Brain areas react differently

However, the brains of the test subjects showed a different picture: the so-called nucleus accumbens, a component of the brain's reward system, was much more active when both voices shown to the test subjects were natural voices. In contrast, the auditory cortex, which is responsible for analysing sounds, was more active when one of the two voices was a deepfake voice.

Roswandowitz concluded that humans can therefore only be partially deceived by deepfakes.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look
here , and if you have feedback on this news story please write to
... .

External Content Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again. Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you. Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

Email

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

I consent to the use of my data for the SWI swissinfo newsletter.

Deeply Read More Science Switzerland says it can't afford to take part in Copernicus programme Read more: Switzerland says it can't afford to take part in Copernicus programm More Workplace Switzerland How Switzerland plans to tackle its labour shortage Read more: How Switzerland plans to tackle its labour shortag More Culture Switzerland wins Eurovision Song Contest 2024 Read more: Switzerland wins Eurovision Song Contest 202 More Workplace Switzerland Owning a home is becoming increasingly difficult in Switzerland Read more: Owning a home is becoming increasingly difficult in Switzerlan More Life & Aging Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen mulls Venice-style tourist entry charge Read more: Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen mulls Venice-style tourist entry charge Most Discussed

MENAFN12062024000210011054ID1108325420