Researchers up at the University of Edinburgh have determined that the male voice is harder for voice recognition software to pick up and understand than its female counterpart. This conclusion was reached after telephone conversation recordings were run through a battery of tests, which revealed that men seem to say "umm" and "err" more often, while also identifying that the greatest difficulties arise with words that sound similar and can arise in the same context, such as "him" and "them." Equally troubling is the first word in a sentence, as it comes without context and therefore doesn't benefit from any predictive assistance. Done in partnership with
Stanford, the study was aimed at identifying and overcoming the major hurdles to producing usable and reliable voice recognition -- something Google's
universal voice translator phone is also aiming to achieve. Let's hope
somebody figures out how to get around all our hemming and hawing, eh?
posted March 5th 2010 9:29AM
Photo WIN
@pavlindrom "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!?!?"
@Pookiewood Mouf not mouth.
@Jacob Apple Geek True True!! :p
@Pookiewood yes, an awesome photo.
@pavlindrom i was going to post the exact same thing, lol
@pavlindrom EPIC PHOTO WIN
@pavlindrom
i 2nd that lol. the photo was the main reason i clicked lol
@TCrimson05
same here
@Pookiewood nobody understands the words that are coming out ah yo' mouf
The Stanford-Edinburgh collaboration in question is the same one that gave birth to CereProc, the company that's creating Roger Ebert's synthetic voice. High five!
Girls, go to the nearest doctors and have your voice change
@JamAncheta
And remove your gag reflex...
@PlatinumSkeet
Very classy. Great work.
Obviously these computers have never played on XBOX Live...where 12 year old boys sound like girls and girls sound like 12 year old boys...no matter their age...
@ncxcstud From the description of 'umming' and 'erring' it sounds like their biggest problem was that they used Scottish voices for the analysis. You ever heard a Radio Scotland football phone in?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S50k6cG0b9U&feature=related
Telephone might have been invented in Scotland, but that doesn't help with our accents.
@Bellzebub
Maybe they used secretly recorded phone sex service calls?
@ncxcstud the easiest way to tell if they are a boy or a girl: Do you hear the synonym for: "a bundle of kindling" or if you hear the common 18th century slang term for people born in africa? You have yourself a boy.
Jackie Chan "If you're half Chinese, I'm half black. I'm your brother and I'm fly. You down with that, Snoopy? "
Colliding accents WIN
Movie WIN
Article WIN
God i've had too many coffees to get the morning going.
@Shravan
I can't be the only one who read the article in a Scotish accent... Right..?
ummmm
Sadly, the computer recognizing your speech is not PC.
/me feels ashamed by that pun, but had to say it...
When voice recognition adds the user feedback phrase
"I don't understand the words coming out of your mouf!"
Is the day I am on board.
SAY WHAT ONE MORE TIME.
@Fanman I dare you, I double dare you!
Unfortunately, computers will *never* be able to truly understand woman.
For example, the computer may be able to tell that a woman is saying, "No, there's no problem, Honey." But no computer will ever be able to determine that she really means "You as*hole! I'm going to sleep with your best friend just to get even with you!"
@Spiny Norman
Bitter?
@Fanman
No. I don't get mad. I get even. I slept with her sister to get even with her for getting even with me. ;-)
@Spiny Norman
Can't we all just get along?
Women have to make a greater effort to be understood, they, generally speaking, are given less chance to speak. They learn to be more effective communicators. Obviously, a computer isn't subconsciously thinking about your tits or relating you to the brunette who ignored them in geography.
They would explain why centuries of technological advancements in Star Trek starships' computer all have female voices.
Don't feel so bad men, I'm sure after a few hours of babbling about make-up, cloths, office gossip, and celebrities the computer will "stop recognizing" the female voice too.
@willwillywilson I know it aint right, but I still laughed heartily at that.
Anecdotally, I have noticed this with Google Voice transcription. It usually does a more accurate job with female voices.
Also, I think that the FAA found out that voice warnings in aircraft systems were easier to hear/respond to when they were female voices.
Works the same way with parrots. They're much more likely to start talking if surrounded by girls rather than guys.
Just a fun fact for you there.
I just want to say that whoever comes up with the pictures for the Engadget articles is amazing. Mostly the random pictures, but photos of actual products are fine too I suppose.
@HousePorsche Each author does his own stuff, so you're welcome. ;) Our resident master of random images, though, is Joe Flatley. Just hit the editors button up top and browse through his past articles.
Girls uses silence fillers too, they just use words like, well, "like". You know, like, totally!
I'm on a horse (!)
sideways vagina in the source link
There is a downside to using female voices. US military planes have voice warnings when the pilot is coming in too low. Specially fighter planes. The voice is to remind the pilot to pull up (no joke, i know what you are thinking). The air force learned that pilots ended up tuning out the nagging female voice (wife?), so the warning systems got changed to male voices.
In the words of Nigel Tufnell, 'What's wrong with being sexy'?
Photo: classic. You guys are genuis. I can totally hear the words coming out of his mouth!
Brett: What?
Jules: What country are you from?
Brett: What? What? Wh - ?
Jules: "What" ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in What?
Brett: What?
Jules: English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Brett: Yes! Yes!
Jules: Then you know what I'm sayin'!
Brett: Yes!
Jules: Describe what Marsellus Wallace looks like!
Brett: What?
Jules: Say 'what' again. Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say what one more Goddamn time!
pic is from rush hour, chris tucker and jackie chan