Telephone directory information retrieval system and method
First Claim
1. A method for obtaining telephone directory information from a database, comprising:
- a) performing a first speech recognition processing on a speaker'"'"'s utterance, in order to obtain a list of candidate hypotheses that have corresponding database entries in the database;
b) determining whether or not any of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for a part of the corresponding database entry;
c) if the determination in step b) is that at least one of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for the part, then performing the following steps for that candidate hypothesis;
d) generating at least one substitution consistent with the initial, abbreviation or nickname, and obtaining at least one generated hypothesis that includes the generated substitution;
e) performing a second speech recognition processing for the sequence of acoustic observations with respect to the at least one generated hypothesis, and obtaining a match score for each of the at least one generated hypotheses with respect to the caller'"'"'s utterance; and
f) determining a highest match score of the list of candidate hypotheses as a recognized answer to be utilized to retrieve the telephone directory information from the database, wherein the match score of the at least one generated hypothesis is used instead of the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis if the match score of the generated hypothesis is greater than the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A database retrieval system obtains telephone directory information, and includes a speech receiving unit that outputs an acoustic observation sequence corresponding to a speaker'"'"'s utterance of a first name and last name of someone for whom a telephone number is desired. The system also includes a speech recognition processing unit that performs speech recognition processing on acoustic observations, to obtain a list of candidate hypotheses, and to obtain a match score for each candidate hypothesis. The system further includes a hypothesis evaluating unit that determines whether any candidate hypothesis has an initial for a first name part of the corresponding database entry, to generate all consistent first names, and to obtain a plurality of generated hypotheses corresponding to each of the generated first names. The speech recognition processing unit performs another speech recognition processing on the acoustic observation sequence, to obtain a match score for each generated hypothesis. The hypothesis evaluation unit updates a match score for each candidate hypothesis to a highest match score of the corresponding ones of the generated hypotheses, and a best scoring candidate hypothesis is used to obtain information from a database.
65 Citations
33 Claims
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1. A method for obtaining telephone directory information from a database, comprising:
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a) performing a first speech recognition processing on a speaker'"'"'s utterance, in order to obtain a list of candidate hypotheses that have corresponding database entries in the database;
b) determining whether or not any of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for a part of the corresponding database entry;
c) if the determination in step b) is that at least one of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for the part, then performing the following steps for that candidate hypothesis;
d) generating at least one substitution consistent with the initial, abbreviation or nickname, and obtaining at least one generated hypothesis that includes the generated substitution;
e) performing a second speech recognition processing for the sequence of acoustic observations with respect to the at least one generated hypothesis, and obtaining a match score for each of the at least one generated hypotheses with respect to the caller'"'"'s utterance; and
f) determining a highest match score of the list of candidate hypotheses as a recognized answer to be utilized to retrieve the telephone directory information from the database, wherein the match score of the at least one generated hypothesis is used instead of the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis if the match score of the generated hypothesis is greater than the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A system for obtaining telephone directory information from a database, comprising:
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a speech recognition processing unit configured to perform a first speech recognition processing on a speaker'"'"'s utterance, in order to obtain a list of candidate hypotheses that have corresponding database entries in the database; and
a hypothesis evaluation unit configured to determine whether or not any of the list of candidate hypotheses output by the speech recognition processing unit has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for a part of the corresponding database entry, wherein, when the determination by the hypothesis evaluation unit is that at least one of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for the part, then the hypothesis evaluation unit generates at least one substitution consistent with the initial, abbreviation or nickname, and obtains at least one generated hypothesis that includes the generated substitution, wherein the speech recognition processing unit performs a second speech recognition processing for the sequence of acoustic observations with respect to the at least one generated hypothesis provided to the speech recognition processing unit by the hypothesis evaluation unit, and wherein a match score is obtained for each of the at least one generated hypotheses with respect to the caller'"'"'s utterance, wherein a highest match score of the list of candidate hypotheses is determined to be a recognized answer that is utilized to retrieve the telephone directory information from the database, and wherein the match score of the at least one generated hypothesis is used instead of the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis if the match score of the generated hypothesis is greater than the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33)
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24. A program product having machine readable code for obtaining telephone directory information from a database, the program code, when executed, causing a machine to perform the following steps:
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a) performing a first speech recognition processing on a speaker'"'"'s utterance, in order to obtain a list of candidate hypotheses that have corresponding database entries in the database;
b) determining whether or not any of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for a part of the corresponding database entry;
c) if the determination in step b) is that at least one of the list of candidate hypotheses has an initial, abbreviation or nickname for the part, then performing the following steps for that candidate hypothesis;
d) generating at least one substitution consistent with the initial, abbreviation or nickname, and obtaining at least one generated hypothesis that includes the generated substitution;
e) performing a second speech recognition processing for the sequence of acoustic observations with respect to the at least one generated hypothesis, and obtaining a match score for each of the at least one generated hypotheses with respect to the caller'"'"'s utterance; and
f) determining a highest match score of the list of candidate hypotheses as a recognized answer to be utilized to retrieve the telephone directory information from the database, wherein the match score of the at least one generated hypothesis is used instead of the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis if the match score of the generated hypothesis is greater than the match score of its corresponding candidate hypothesis. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification