Ananova:

Men are just as chatty as women, according to scientists.

Researchers bugged 400 students to log their chats and found little difference in word count between the sexes.

The University of Arizona study, published in Science, conflicts with previous US research suggesting women talk almost three times as much as men.

Whether someone was an introvert or an extrovert was more important, said relationship experts.

In the study, women spoke a daily average of 16,215 words during their waking hours, and men 15,669 words.

Lead researcher Matthias Mehl said: "What's a 500-word difference, compared to the 45,000-word difference between the most and the least talkative persons?"

The most talkative man in the study used 47,000 words while the least used a little more than 500 over a few days.

Relate spokeswoman Paula Hall, a relationship psychotherapist, said the findings matched her experience.

"It's not fair to say men don't talk. Blokes in the pub don't stand around in silence," she said.

"The problem is not how much people talk or don't talk, the problem is how well people listen."