Why computer voices are mostly female

[SoCalDem]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-voices/index.html?eref=rss_tech&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_tech+%28RSS%3A+Technology%29


By Brandon Griggs, CNN
updated 11:42 AM EST, Fri October 21, 2011 | Filed under: Innovations



(CNN) -- To most owners of the new iPhone, the voice-activated feature called Siri is more than a virtual "assistant" who can help schedule appointments, find a good nearby pizza or tell you if it's going to rain.

She's also a she.

Siri answers questions in a part-human, part-robot voice that's deep, briskly efficient and distinctly female. (At least in the U.S. and four other countries. In France and the UK, Siri is male.) People describe the app using female pronouns. Her gender has even prompted some users to flood blogs and online forums with sexually suggestive questions for Siri such as "What are you wearing?" (Siri's baffled response: "Why do people keep asking me this?") The fuss over Siri's sex also raises a larger question: From voice-mail systems to GPS devices to Siri and beyond, why are so many computerized voices female?

One answer may lie in biology. Scientific studies have shown that people generally find women's voices more pleasing than men's. "It's much easier to find a female voice that everyone likes than a male voice that everyone likes," said Stanford University Professor Clifford Nass, author of "The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships." "It's a well-established phenomenon that the human brain is developed to like female voices." HAL, the homicidal artificial intelligence in "2001: A space Odyssey," may have scared manufacturers away from male automated voices. Research suggests this preference starts as early as the womb, Nass said. He cites a study in which fetuses were found to react to the sound of their mother's voice but not to other female voices. The fetuses showed no distinct reaction to their father's voice, however.

Another answer lies in history. According to some sources, the use of female voices in navigation devices dates back to World War II, when women's voices were employed in airplane cockpits because they stood out among the male pilots. And telephone operators have traditionally been female, making people accustomed to getting assistance from a disembodied woman's voice. When automakers were first installing automated voice prompts in cars ("your door is ajar") decades ago, their consumer research found that people overwhelmingly preferred female voices to male ones, said Tim Bajarin, a Silicon Valley analyst and president of Creative Strategies Inc.


snip

[virgogal]

1. Ladies----avoid German men.

[undeterred]

33. German men are such big babies.

[msongs]

2. cue the diatribes about "male privilege" anytime now lol nt

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Preemptive poutrage

gotta love it...or not :eyes:

[seabeyond]

10. that would be our elected officials telling us women to be ladies and whores

depending on our location.

do tell me the last time you had an elected official lecturing you on your behavior.

servicing your wife

then come back to me about your little giggle.

[Cirque du So-What]

29. I think you're replying to someone else

in a thread other than this one.

[undeterred]

34. Who cued the sarcastic male whining?

[dtexdem]

4. And here I thought it was because most computers were female.

;-)

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tularetom]

6. I always liked the voice on the old Macs that sounded like a guy from India

I used it to tell jokes over the phone to my brother in law in his law office.

I'd type up the joke then dial his number and when I got him on the line, I'd hold the phone up to the receiver and play back the joke.

He'd scream "i know it's you, you fucker. I'm gonna kick your ass." or something to that effect then I'd hang up before I started laughing.

[Cirque du So-What]

7. My wife and I both preferred the female voices on the car's GPS

although she wouldn't allow the one with a British accent that I really liked.

[Wait Wut]

9. The British one has gotten us lost...twice.

I told my husband that she was a spy. Now, we're voiceless. I'm now the official "voice" of our GPS. I even read it to him in the same tone. :P

[jberryhill]

32. Mine tried to kill me twice

First, she wanted me to drive into a quarry in Maine, then she told me to take a left turn off of a winding mountain pass over a cliff.

She's out to get me, I know it.

[Wait Wut]

37. They must be related.

Although, all ours did was try to convince us to drive into the desert. Not on a road, but freestyle. If she had tried to push me off a cliff we'd be shopping for a new GPS.

[jberryhill]

46. Were you going to Oatman, AZ?

I actually followed her directions on what I think must have been an old horse trail.

We got there, but I was skeptical.

What REALLY toasts my bread is that Garmin has had my road in the wrong place for years and EVERY delivery service uses them. I always get called, and know exactly where they are and how to get to my house, but it's actually tough to persuade them she's wrong.

I had one repair guy call me to confirm my address and I said "use your GPS and then call me when you don't get here" since he didn't believe me when I told him I'm not on the map.

[Wait Wut]

48. No. Flagstaff.

I think she was trying to get us shot, since the high-desert area she tried to get us to drive through was a ranch.

Garmin has our road in the wrong spot, too!!! There's actually another road by the same name, but it's "drive" and ours is "road". Garmin can't seem to differentiate. Not only that, but the other "drive" is only 3 blocks long. Our "road" is over a mile long. I guess size doesn't matter. :eyes:

[seabeyond]

40. lol... truly. i was. cute. nt

[seabeyond]

12. mine lectures me cause i choose to go a different direction. can be a real

nag.

[Wait Wut]

39. My husband starting arguing with her.

She was getting so flustered because he was going his own way, "Recalcul..recalc...recal..." I was waiting for her to start swearing at him. He would've deserved it, though, because he kept calling her a stupid bitch.

[seabeyond]

41. me and your hubby... exactly. lol. not good with kids in the car.

bad parenting.

[Trailrider1951]

8. And I always thought it was Star Trek

Gene Roddenberry's idea and Majel Barrett's voice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3WOY9SwyOs


edited because I cannot spell today

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. I'd also be OK with a Snoop Dogg voiced computer. nt

[seabeyond]

13. that would be more fun.... nt

[SoCalDem]

14. Yo---Yo.. shut the door, asshole

:rofl:

[seabeyond]

18. fuck u ho told you turn the fuck left.... RIGHT NOW. nt

[SoCalDem]

20. Back that ass-car up, foo.. you missed your turn

:rofl:

[seabeyond]

23. lmao...

you are fun.

mine really does get irritating when i dont do what it wants. i swear it snaps back at me. so then i start telling it what it can do... lol. life is funny

[jberryhill]

30. I hacked mine to do things like that

Some of the Garmins have a text-to-speech system in which all of the vocabulary and phrases are stored in a text file in the device.

There are some programs online that allow you to extract, edit and reload the text file.

So it's a breeze to change "Make a u turn" to "Turn the f- around", among other things, like "Get on the f-ing road" instead of "drive to highlighted route".

Having changed a bunch of the voice prompts including that awful Garmin "recalculating" said with an exasperated tone to a phrase suggesting that she is quite pleased, I like to lend it out to other unsuspecting folks.

[seabeyond]

35. that is funny. i swear she gets frustrated.... her tone anyway. nt

[redqueen]

16. Not computer, but GPS

http://www.voiceskins.com/celebrity/snoop-dogg-voiceskin.html

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

19. Holy shit!! That's awesome!

:P


.

[redqueen]

22. I saw him on Graham Norton ...

and of course Graham had to bring it up, and play clips. :)

[JVS]

15. I wish I could get a GPS that sounded like HAL.

Take the next right, Dave.

[SoCalDem]

17. HAL was the best part of 2001

the rest put me to sleep....literally

[SoCalDem]

26. Here ya go, my friend

http://www.carandgps.com/hal-9000-gps/

[apocalypsehow]

21. Good article, but I believe the preference goes deeper than that: the first voice ANY of us hear is

a female voice, while we are gestating in our mother's womb. Don't know what the deal with the German men is, though.

[seabeyond]

24. that is what i was thinking... assuring... when i read the article

rather than dictorial.

[SoCalDem]

25. When I was pregnant, I swore that baby woke me up at night just to hear me

to make sure I was still "there".. They would do gymnastics when I was asleep, but after I woke up and they heard my voice, they settled down & let me sleep some more:)

[seabeyond]

27. wow... isnt that sweet

i never paid attention, lol.

bad mom. lol.

[cherokeeprogressive]

53. That was the first thing I thought as well. n/t

[sakabatou]

28. Can I get an Alan Rickman GPS?

"You forgot to turn right at Elm Street? 10 points from Gryffindor."

[Lex1775]

31. The verbal warning system in all USAF aircraft is a calm female voice

The government did a big study on it back in the day and found that, when things are going all to shit at several hundred miles an hour thousands of feet in the air, that the male pilots had better reactions to a calm female voice giving them verbal warnings. They were able to concentrate better and their heart rates were noticeably lower. To this day the verbal warning system is referred to as "Bitching Betty".

[bananas]

47. The Andromeda Strain novel had an interesting section on that. nt

[hunter]

36. Who are you people?

There are no computer voices in my life, and I hope to God there never will be.

I got plenty enough voices harassing me as it is.

[SoCalDem]

38. none here either.. I even have the speakers on my laptop turned to mute

:)

[DaveJ]

42. My wife gets mad at me

I trust the GPS lady more than her when it comes to directions.

I guess men like it because it's the one way we can interact with another lady without getting in too much trouble.

[seabeyond]

43. wow. nt

[DaveJ]

44. I am kidding. Just making sure you knew that.

[seabeyond]

49. wooosh

good to hear. thanks for making sure i knew that.

[Matariki]

45. "What are you wearing?" Siri's baffled response: "Why do people keep asking me this?"

:rofl:

[Motown_Johnny]

50. because the computer(s) on the original Star Trek series was/were female

end of story


sorry


over analyze all you want


The pattern was set long ago

[ThoughtCriminal]

51. Just what do you think you're doing HAL?

It's Dave man! Will you open up? I got the stuff with me!


http://thoughtcrimewave.blogspot.com/search?q=Dave

I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

[jmowreader]

52. "You screwed up" messages should be in a man's voice

Specifically, Lee Ermey's voice.

[csziggy]

54. I think it's because Gene Roddenberry used his wife as the voice

For the computers on the Enterprise. Majel Barrett-Roddenberry was the voice for most of the computer interface voices throughout the history of the series:
"She provided the regular voice of the onboard computers of Federation starships for Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and most of the Star Trek movies. She reprised her role as a shipboard computer's voice in two episodes of the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise. She also lent her voice to various computer games and software related to the franchise."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett