Selective display of comprehension guides

• US 10,417,933 B1
• Filed: 04/25/2014
• Issued: 09/17/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Yu, Wainwright Gregory Siady, Chuah, Joon Hao, Hullender, Gregory Nicholas, Poulin, James Joseph, Kanso, Mohammad, Natarajan, Manigandan, Watson, Brandon LaBranche, Roth, Robert Wayne, King, Joseph, Aggarwal, Nikunj, Dass, Ramya, Sampath, Sridhar, Asokan, Santosh Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): Bullington, Robert P
• Application Number:
  US14/262,680
• Time in Patent Office: 1,971 Days
• Field of Search: 434157
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 17/003 electrically operated apparatus or devices
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/06 Foreign languages with audible presentation of material to be studied G09B5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/06 with both visual and audible presentation of the material to be studied

Abstract

Techniques are provided for selectively and dynamically determining one or more words of an electronic book to present with comprehension guides. For instance, an electronic device rendering an electronic book may determine whether to display some, all, or no words of the book with comprehension guides for words within the electronic book based on word difficulty, contextual importance or aspects of the user. Techniques are also provided for determining the content of comprehension guides to be presented with the words.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

an electronic device having one or more processors; and

memory, storing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising;

determining a score for a word included in an electronic book, the score indicative of a priority for presentation of a comprehension guide for the word, the comprehension guide including textual content aiding in comprehension of the word, wherein the determining the score is based at least in part on;

a difficulty value of the word, the difficulty value being based at least in part on a frequency of occurrence of the word in a corpus of writings; and

a contextual importance of the word within at least one of the electronic book or a subject matter area associated with the electronic book;

selecting a particular occurrence of the word in the electronic book to be presented with the comprehension guide based at least in part on;

the score of the word;

a number of occurrences of the word in the electronic book;

a number of meanings of the word occurring in the electronic book; and

a density of occurrences of other words selected to be presented with corresponding comprehension guides;

determining which of a plurality of meanings of the word is used for the particular occurrence of the word in the electronic book;

selecting the comprehension guide for the particular occurrence of the word;

determining a placement location of the comprehension guide proximate to an original location of the particular occurrence of the word in the electronic book, the placement location being selected to avoid concealing existing text in the electronic book;

determining a reading level associated with a reader of the electronic book based at least in part on a dynamically modified guide profile of the reader; and

based at least in part on the score of the word, additional scores determined for additional words in the electronic book, and the reading level associated with the reader, dynamically selecting a subset of words in the electronic book to render with corresponding first comprehension guides such that remaining words in the electronic book that are not included in the subset of words are to be rendered without corresponding second comprehension guides, wherein the word is included in the subset of words; and

causing display of the comprehension guide at the placement location in the electronic book.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, the selecting configured to select the comprehension guide based at least in part on one or more of the density of occurrences of other words selected to be presented with corresponding comprehension guides or a space available adjacent to the word as displayed in the electronic book such that the comprehension guide is placed on a same line as the word.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the word has two or more meanings in a first language that are used in the electronic book and wherein the determining the score comprises determining a first score for the word for a first meaning of the word and determining a second, different score for the word for a second meaning of the word, the first score or the second score used in the selecting the particular occurrence of the word in the electronic book.

4. A method comprising:

under control of an electronic device that is configured with executable instructions,

determining a score for a word in an electronic book, the score indicative of a priority for presentation of a comprehension guide for the word in the electronic book, the comprehension guide including textual content aiding in comprehension of the word, wherein the determining is based at least in part on;

a difficulty value of the word, the difficulty value being based at least in part on a frequency of occurrence of the word in a corpus of writings; and

a contextual importance of the word, the contextual importance being based at least in part on a subject matter area of the electronic book;

selecting the comprehension guide for the word;

determining a placement location of the comprehension guide proximate to an original location of the word in the electronic book, the placement location being selected to avoid concealing existing text in the electronic book;

determining a reading attribute associated with a reader of the electronic book based at least in part on a dynamically modified guide profile of the reader;

based at least in part on the score determined for the word, additional scores determined for additional words in the electronic book, and the reading attribute associated with the reader, dynamically selecting a subset of words in the electronic book to render with corresponding first comprehension guides such that other words in the electronic book that are not included in the subset of words are to be rendered without corresponding second comprehension guides, wherein the word is included in the subset of words; and

causing display, on a display of the electronic device, of the comprehension guide at the placement location in the electronic book.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the word is of a first language, and wherein the comprehension guide comprises one or more of:

a synonym of the word in the first language;

a translation of the word into a second language;

or

an origin or root of the word that indicates a meaning of the word.

6. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the determining the score is further based at least in part on the reading attribute, the reading attribute comprising at least one of:

a reading level of the reader;

a reading history of the reader;

or

a primary language of the reader.

7. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising presenting the comprehension guide and the word in a study guide based at least in part on the score.

8. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the word is of a first language and the contextual importance is based at least in part on a frequency with which the word occurs in a corpus of writings in the first language related to the subject matter area.

9. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

causing display, on the display of the electronic device, of the existing text, the comprehension guide, and a second comprehension guide such that the comprehension guide and the second comprehension guide do not overlap on the display;

receiving user input requesting to modify a displayed format of the existing text;

determining that the comprehension guide and the second comprehension guide will overlap on the display after modification of the displayed format of the existing text;

determining a replacement comprehension guide to replace at least one of the comprehension guide or the second comprehension guide, the replacement comprehension guide being selected to avoid rendering overlapping comprehension guides on the display;

modifying the displayed format of the existing text as modified existing text; and

causing display, on the display, of the modified existing text and the replacement comprehension guide in lieu of displaying at least one of the comprehension guide or the second comprehension guide such that the replacement comprehension guide does not overlap with a remaining one of the comprehension guide or the second comprehension guide on the display.

10. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein:

the word is a compound word or idiom comprising a plurality of terms, the compound word or idiom having a meaning that is different from a literal meaning of the plurality of terms; and

the determining the score of the word comprises determining a score for the compound word or idiom.

11. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the word is of a first language and the determining the score is further based at least in part on a relation of the first language to a second language.

12. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

receiving feedback from one or more users about the comprehension guide for the word; and

adapting the score of the word based at least in part on the feedback.

13. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the word is of a first language and the determining the score is based at least in part on the word having two or more meanings in the first language.

14. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the placement location includes at least one of a position inter-linearly above a selected occurrence of the word or a position inline adjacent to the selected occurrence of the word.

15. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

determining a definition of the word; and

reducing a length of the definition by removing at least one alternative or modifier from the definition.

16. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on an electronic device having one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising:

determining a score for a word of an electronic book indicative of a priority for presentation of a comprehension guide for the word, the comprehension guide including textual content aiding in comprehension of the word, wherein the determining is based at least in part on;

a difficulty value of the word based at least in part on a frequency of occurrence of the word in a corpus of writings; and

a contextual importance of the word within the electronic book;

selecting the comprehension guide for presentation with the word;

determining a placement location of the comprehension guide proximate to an original location of the word in the electronic book, the placement location being selected to avoid concealing existing text in the electronic book;

determining a reading attribute associated with a reader of the electronic book based at least in part on a dynamically modified guide profile of the reader; and

based at least in part on the score determined for the word, additional scores determined for additional words in the electronic book, and the reading attribute associated with the reader, dynamically selecting a subset of words in the electronic book to render with corresponding first comprehension guides such that other words in the electronic book that are not included in the subset of words are to be rendered without corresponding second comprehension guides, wherein the word is included in the subset of words; and

causing display of the comprehension guide at the placement location in the electronic book.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, wherein the contextual importance of the word is based at least in part on a frequency with which the word occurs in the electronic book.

18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, wherein the contextual importance of a word is based at least in part on the word having two or more meanings in a first language.

19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, wherein the reading attribute includes at least one of:

a reading level of the reader;

a reading history of the reader;

or

a primary language of the reader.

20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, wherein the determining the score is further based at least in part on a relation of a first language to a second language, where the second language is a native language of the reader.

21. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, wherein the determining the score of the word is based at least in part on the word having two or more meanings in a first language that are present in the electronic book.