System and method for creating voice profiles for specific demographics

• US 10,373,603 B2
• Filed: 04/24/2017
• Issued: 08/06/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bangalore, Srinivas, Mishra, Taniya
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Shreyans A
• Application Number:
  US15/494,870
• Publication Number:
  US 20170229112A1
• Time in Patent Office: 834 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/02 Methods for producing synthetic speech; Speech synthesisers
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/033 Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/047 Architecture of speech synthesisers
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/06 Creation of reference templates; Training of speech recognition systems, e.g. adaptation to the characteristics of the speaker's voice G10L15/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/08 Speech classification or search
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1807 using prosody or stress
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/26 Recognition of special voice characteristics, e.g. for use in lie detectors; Recognition of animal voices
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/48 specially adapted for particular use

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage devices for receiving an utterance from a user and analyzing the utterance to identify the demographics of the user. The system then analyzes the utterance to determine the prosody of the utterance, and retrieves from the Internet data associated with the determined demographics. Using the retrieved data, the system retrieves, also from the Internet, recorded speech matching the identified prosody. The recorded speech, which is based on the demographic data of the utterance and has a prosody matching the utterance, is then saved to a database for future use in generating speech specific to the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

retrieving, via a speech processing system and from a remote database, data associated with a demographic of a user that provided an utterance to the speech processing system and recorded speech matching a prosody of the utterance;

saving the data and the recorded speech in a local database; and

generating, by the speech processing system, speech using the data and the recorded speech stored in the local database.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing, via the speech processing system, the utterance to identify the demographic of the user and the prosody of the utterance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the recorded speech and the data associated with the demographic of the user further comprises retrieving the recorded speech from a first database and retrieving the data associated with the demographic of the user from a second database.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the prosody of the utterance comprises an accent, a pitch, a rate, and an energy of the utterance.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the demographic of the user comprises one of an age, a gender, an ethnicity, an education level, and an economic status.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the demographic of the user comprises a geographic location.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the data retrieved from the remote database is retrieved from one of a blog, a social media website, and a book.

8. A speech processing system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

retrieving, from a remote database, data associated with a demographic of a user that provided an utterance and recorded speech matching a prosody of the utterance;

saving the data and the recorded speech in a local database; and

generating speech using the data and the recorded speech stored in the local database.

9. The speech processing system of claim 8, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores additional instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations further comprising:

analyzing the utterance to identify the demographic of the user and the prosody of the utterance.

10. The speech processing system of claim 8, wherein retrieving the recorded speech and the data associated with the demographic of the user further comprises retrieving the recorded speech from a first database and retrieving the data associated with the demographic of the user from a second database.

11. The speech processing system of claim 8, wherein the prosody of the utterance comprises an accent, a pitch, a rate, and an energy of the utterance.

12. The speech processing system of claim 8, wherein the demographic of the user comprises one of an age, a gender, an ethnicity, an education level, and an economic status.

13. The speech processing system of claim 8, wherein the demographic of the user comprises a geographic location.

14. The speech processing system of claim 8, wherein the data is retrieved from one of a blog, a social media website, and a book.

15. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a speech processing system, cause the speech processing system to perform operations comprising:

retrieving, from a remote database, data associated with a demographic of a user that provided an utterance and recorded speech matching a prosody of the utterance;

saving the data and the recorded speech in a local database; and

generating speech using the data and the recorded speech stored in the local database.

16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable storage device stores additional instructions which, when executed by the speech processing system, cause the speech processing system to perform operations further comprising:

analyzing the utterance to identify the demographic of the user and the prosody of the utterance.

17. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein retrieving the recorded speech and the data associated with the demographic of the user further comprises retrieving the recorded speech from a first database and retrieving the data associated with the demographic of the user from a second database.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the prosody of the utterance comprises an accent, a pitch, a rate, and an energy of the utterance.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the demographic of the user comprises one of an age, a gender, an ethnicity, an education level, and an economic status.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the demographic of the user comprises a geographic location.