Updated on Friday, July 06, 2007, 00:00 IST

London, July 06: It is an accepted fact that women love gossip and they have significantly longer conversations than their male counterparts, but a new study has challenged the notion. Researchers at the University of Arizona has challenged the findings published in a book by a neuropsychiatrist who claims that a woman uses about 20,000 words a day while a man uses only about 7,000.

The researchers, who studied over 400 male and female university students in the USA and Mexico, found that women spoke an average of 16,215 words everyday compared to an average of 15,669 words for men. Lead researcher, Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the UA said that 500 words difference is hardly ‘significant’ because the study also found that the most and the least talkative persons had a difference of 45,000 words.

“What's a 500-word difference, compared to the 45,000-word difference between the most and the least talkative persons? Just to illustrate the magnitude of difference, among the three most talkative males in the study, one used 47,000 words. The least talkative male spoke just a little more than 500," Nature journal quoted Mehl, as saying.

Mehl admitted that there are doubts about the homogeneity of the sample, but added that the study showed no support for the idea that women speak more than men. The lead researcher added that ‘the widespread and highly publicized stereotype about female talkativeness and male reticence is unfounded’. The study is reported in a science journal.

Bureau Report with ANI inputs