Why PCs understand women more than men

In the study, researchers recorded phone calls and studied how much of conversations a recognition system could understand, and after analyses they discovered that computers failed to understand men's speech because they make "umm" and "err" sounds more frequently.

The research also revealed that computers made mistakes with words which sound similar and can occur in similar contexts, such as "I saw him" or "I saw them", reports The BBC.

Boffins said it was hard to design a computer that could understand so many different kinds of voices but this research should help improve it.

The study, a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Stanford University in the US, was published in the journal Speech Communication.

Dr Sharon Goldwater, of Edinburgh University's school of informatics, who led the research, said, "Voices vary from one person to the next and it is challenging to design a computer system that can understand lots of different voices.

"We hope that by closely studying how people speak and how machines process this, we can help create better systems that will be simple and efficient for people to use."