Speech recognition systems find it harder to understand men than women, reports a new study by the University of Edinburgh. In addition, the first word of a sentence is often misunderstood, which researchers say could be because the machine cannot put the word in context, or because the speaker inhales just before talking.
The study, led by a scientist at the University, found that computers commonly fail to understand speech when it is peppered with 'umm' and 'err' sounds. The reason men tend to be misunderstood more than women when talking to computers is partly because they umm and err more frequently, the research found.
Computers also make mistakes with words that sound similar and can occur in similar contexts, such as 'I saw him' or 'I saw them'. This is exacerbated when the word is not enunciated properly. Variations in pitch, tone and speed can also cause the system to misunderstand voices.
Researchers carried out the study by recording phone discussions between pairs of people and feeding their conversation into a speech recognition system to see how much it could understand.
The study, a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Stanford University, was published in the journal Speech Communication. This work was supported by the Edinburgh-Stanford Link and the US Office of Naval Research.
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