# The Impact of an Agent's Voice in Psychological Counseling: Session Evaluation and Counselor Rating
## 2 Literature Review
### Counselor in a Psychological Counseling  
Psychological counseling is an act in which the counselor becomes a therapeutic instrument to assist the client who pleads difficulties. Studies in the past has mainly focused on the differences in the effectiveness of counseling under different counseling techniques based on specific theories. However, recent studies rather exert a growing interest and focus on the effects of the characteristics of the counselor on the outcome of such counseling [15]. [PERSON] [15] concluded after analyzing various studies that the key factor in the performance of the counseling is the question of which counselor conducted such counseling rather than a specific treatment used in the said counseling. [PERSON] [52], after analyzing 141 quantitative studies, categorized the factors of the counselor variable, which affects the performance of the counseling into the observable traits, such as gender and age, the observable states, such as the proficiency of the counselor, type of intervention, etc., the inferred traits, such as values, beliefs, attitudes, etc., of the counselor, and the inferred states from the theoretical background. Particularly, the observable traits such as gender and age has consistently been studied as the variable affecting the performance of the psychological counseling. [PERSON] [53] confirmed that female counselors have more conversation with the patient and express more emotions than male counselors. [PERSON] [54] explained the tendency of female counselors recalling more client information than male counselors. These differences can be explained in terms of socialization of gender roles. While males tend to be strong, emotionally unexpressed and refrain from revealing their emotions to others, females tend to orient towards relationships and promote self-disclosures and intimacies [55]. Studies with respect to the age of the counselor has rather not been conducted broadly because it is confounded by counselor's experience and cohort effects that reflect changes in training [56]. However, [PERSON] [57] found that the performance of the counseling with counselors who are 10 years or more younger than the patient was comparably poorer outcomes than that of the counseling with elderly counselors.  
Problem-solving through psychological counseling has depended on the patient, not the counselor. Thus, it is very critical how the patient perceives the counselor [58]. [PERSON] [59] showed that patients perceived female counselors to be more trustworthy than male counselors. [PERSON] [60] confirmed that a female counselor showed more positive counseling performance then a male counselor and that patients preferred to have counseling with female counselors. As such, it can be confirmed that the gender of the counselor affect the role of the counselor and the perception of the patient [61].  
Thus, the gender, the age, and the perception of the counselor by the patient significantly affect the counseling effect [62]. It is also an important matter in studies on the agent to formulate positive long-term relationship with people through social interactions [63]. Therefore, by considering the gender and the age factor of the counselor and designing the voice of the psychological counseling agent, this study attempts to confirm whether there exists any difference in the performance of the counseling based on the perception of the patient on the agent through the voice of such agent. In order to identify and understand the influence of voice, psychological counseling scenarios were designed to control counseling techniques and a total of four voices were designed varying in gender and age.