Computer scientists have pinpointed the most common speech recognition errors made by automated phone systems, in a bid to improve their accuracy.
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.
Also, men tend to be misunderstood more than women when talking to computers, partly because they umm and err more frequently, the research found.
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Scientists also found that speech recognition systems commonly fail to identify the first word spoken in a phrase.
Researchers say this may be because the machine cannot put the word in context, or because the speaker inhales just before talking.
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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.
