Why most computers have female automated voices

Scientists have now come up with the underlying reasons that can possibly justify the domination of female automated voices in computers.

The 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,” CNN quoted Stanford University Professor Clifford Nass as saying.

“It’s a well-established phenomenon that the human brain is developed to like female voices,” he added.

The research has also suggested that this preference starts as early as the womb.

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 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.

This may explain why in almost all GPS navigation systems in the market except for Germany, the default voice is female.