Histogram grammar weighting and error corrective training of grammar weights
First Claim
1. A method of determining weight for a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the method comprising:
- associating a statistic with each grammar option that approximates a first probability of uttering that grammar option;
dividing the grammar options into groups based on the statistic;
determining for each group a second probability of uttering any grammar option within that group; and
determining an average probability of uttering one grammar option in each group.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A multi-level method for estimating and training weights associated with grammar options is presented. The implementation of the method implemented differs depending on the amount of utterance data available for each option to be tuned. A first implementation, modified maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), can be used to estimate weights for a grammar option when few utterances are available for the option. Option weights are then estimated using an obtainable statistic that creates a basis for the predictability model. A second implementation, error corrective training (ECT) , can be used to estimate option weight when a sufficiently large number of utterances are available. The ECT method minimizes the errors in the score of the correct interpretation of the utterance and the highest scoring incorrect interpretation in an utterance training set. The ECT method is iterated to converge on a solution for option weights.
-
Citations
44 Claims
-
1. A method of determining weight for a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the method comprising:
-
associating a statistic with each grammar option that approximates a first probability of uttering that grammar option;
dividing the grammar options into groups based on the statistic;
determining for each group a second probability of uttering any grammar option within that group; and
determining an average probability of uttering one grammar option in each group. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
-
-
6. A method of determining weight for an option variant of a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the method comprising:
-
associating a statistic with each option variant that approximates a first probability of uttering that option variant;
dividing the option variants into groups based on the statistic;
determining for each group a second probability of uttering any option variant within that group; and
determining an average probability of uttering one option variant in each group. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A method of determining weight for a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the method comprising:
-
determining a correct score and a best competitor score for each utterance in an utterance training set;
comparing the correct score to the best competitor score for each utterance; and
increasing the weight of a first grammar option associated with the correct score by a first amount. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18)
-
-
17. A method of determining an acoustic score of grammar options in a speech recognition grammar used by an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system, comprising:
-
applying the speech recognition grammar to the ASR system to obtain an n-best list containing a score of each grammar option variant associated with each grammar option; and
subtracting a grammar weight from the score of each grammar option variant to get the acoustic score of the grammar option variant.
-
-
19. A software program for determining weight for a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the program comprising:
-
means for associating a statistic with each grammar option that approximates a first probability of uttering that grammar option;
means for dividing the grammar options into groups based on the statistic;
means for determining for each group a second probability of uttering any grammar option within that group; and
means for determining an average probability of uttering one grammar option in each group.
-
-
20. A software program for determining weight for a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the program comprising:
-
means for determining a correct score and a best competitor score for each utterance in an utterance training set;
means for comparing the correct score to the best competitor score for each utterance; and
means for increasing the weight of a first grammar option associated with the correct score by a first amount.
-
-
21. A software program for determining an acoustic score of grammar options in an automatic speech recognition (ASR) grammar, comprising:
-
means for flattening the grammar options in the grammar whereby each option variant associated with each grammar option is explicitly specified;
means for separating each option variant associated with a particular grammar option into a forcing grammar associated with that particular grammar option;
means for applying each forcing grammar to an ASR system to obtain an n-best list for that forcing grammar; and
means for storing the highest score from the n-best as the acoustic score of the particular grammar option.
-
-
22. A method of determining weight for an option variant of a grammar option in a speech recognition grammar, the method comprising:
-
determining a correct score and a best competitor score for each utterance in an utterance training set;
comparing the correct score to the best competitor score for each utterance; and
increasing the weight of a first option variant for a grammar option associated with the correct score by a first amount. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
-
-
32. A method of determining weight for an alternative pronunciation of an option variant of a grammar option for a speech recognition grammar, the method comprising:
-
determining a correct score and a best competitor score for each utterance in an utterance training set;
comparing the correct score to the best competitor score for each utterance; and
increasing the weight of a first alternative pronunciation of an option variant associated with the correct score by a first amount. - View Dependent Claims (33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40)
-
-
37. A method of supporting development of a phone application grammar for a zero-footprint remotely hosted development environment having a network interface, the method comprising:
-
receiving over the network interface from a remote computer the phone application grammar;
executing a tuning algorithm on the phone application grammar resulting in a tuned phone application grammar, wherein the tuning algorithm executes without input from a speech specialist; and
presenting the tuned phone application grammar to the remote computer over the network interface.
-
-
41. A method of supporting development of a phone application grammar for a zero-footprint extranet hosted application having a network interface, the method comprising:
-
receiving over the network interface from a remote computer the phone application grammar;
executing a tuning algorithm on the phone application grammar resulting in a tuned phone application grammar, wherein the tuning algorithm executes without input from a speech specialist; and
presenting the tuned phone application grammar to the remote computer over the network interface. - View Dependent Claims (42, 43, 44)
-
Specification