Book characters are four times more likely to be male than female

Researchers used artificial intelligence to look at 3000 English-language books

Do you think that books have more male than female characters in them?

That's what a new study of 3,000 English language books has found.

Researchers used artificial intelligence and discovered that on average there were four times as many male than female characters.

However, that number was lower when the author of the book was female.

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Researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in America studied a range of book categories written for adults - everything from adventure to science fiction and mystery.

They also looked at short stories and poetry as well as novels.

The team also found that were also more negative terms such as 'weak' and 'stupid' used in connection with the female characters compared to more positive words such as 'power' and 'strength' which were used for men.

Akarsh Nagaraj, who worked on the study said: "Books are a window to the past, and the writing of these authors gives us a glimpse into how people perceive the world, and how it has changed."

When researchers looked at books that were written by women, they found on average that there would be more female characters present.

"It clearly showed us that women in those times would represent themselves much more than a male writer would," Akarsh added.

The authors of the study hope that their research could help change things for the future.

Mayank Kejriwal said: "Our study shows us that the real world is complex but there are benefits to all different groups in our society."

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