Dialogue management using scripts

• US 20060271351A1
• Filed: 05/31/2005
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Bosch Corporation (Robert Bosch GmbH)
• Original Assignee: Robert Bosch Corporation (Robert Bosch GmbH)
• Inventors: Cavedon, Lawrence, Mirkovic, Danilo
• Granted Patent: US 8,041,570 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

Representation-neutral dialogue systems and methods (“RNDS”) are described that include multi-application, multi-device spoken-language dialogue systems based on the information-state update approach. The RNDS includes representation-neutral core components of a dialogue system that provide scripted domain-specific extensions to routines such as dialogue move modeling and reference resolution, easy substitution of specific semantic representations and associated routines, and clean interfaces to external components for language-understanding (i.e., speech-recognition and parsing) and language-generation, and to domain-specific knowledge sources. The RNDS also allows seamless interaction with a community of devices.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an input pattern generated from an acoustic signal that includes a description of a dialogue contribution from a speaker;

identifying the description and at least one parameter of the description using a dialogue move script (DMS), wherein the DMS corresponds to at least one of a device and an application; and

mapping the description to a dialogue move using the DMS, the dialogue move corresponding to the identified parameter and independent of the device and application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising adapting the dialogue move for use across at least one of a plurality of different domains and a plurality of different applications via reprogramming of the DMS.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying at least one of the device and application to which the description corresponds using a noun phrase of the description;

selecting a noun phrase-resolution script (NPRS) that corresponds to at least one of the identified device and application and accessing noun phrase-resolution rules via the selected NPRS; and

translating the description and generating a query that corresponds to at least one of the device and the description using the noun phrase-resolution rules.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising retrieving at least one object referenced by object descriptions from the dialogue contribution from at least one database in response to the query.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the object descriptions include noun-phrases.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising adapting at least one of the noun phrase-resolution rules for use across at least one of a plurality of different domains and a plurality of different applications via reprogramming of the NPRS.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the NPRS includes KnowedgeBase-query construction rules that are programmable to define how noun phrase objects are mapped to the query for each of a plurality of devices.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein generating the query includes translating a noun phrase of the description into the object.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the description is a structured language-based description that includes at least one of a semantic description, a syntactic description, phonological information, utterance-level information, and topic-classification of the dialogue contribution.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the mapping further comprises recognizing at least one parameter of the dialogue contribution.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising scoring matches between variables of the description and the dialogue move components.

12. A system comprising:

a dialogue manager based on the information-state-update approach that includes a plurality of dialogue moves and a dialogue move script (DMS) that corresponds to at least one of a device and an application, the dialogue manager receiving an input pattern generated from an acoustic signal that includes a description of a dialogue contribution from a speaker, the DMS recognizing the description and at least one parameter of the description, the DMS mapping the description to a one of the dialogue moves that corresponds to the recognized parameter;

a knowledge manager coupled to the dialogue manager and to at least one database; and

a device manager coupled to the dialogue manager.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein at least one of the plurality of dialogue moves is adapted for use across at least one different domain and application via reprogramming of the DMS.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the dialogue manager further comprises a noun phrase resolver coupled to a plurality of noun phrase-resolution scripts (NPRSs) and a plurality of rules, wherein each NPRS corresponds to at least one of the device and the application.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the noun phrase resolver uses the NPRS to access the rules and translate the recognized description in order to generate a query that corresponds to at least one of the device and application.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the rules are adapted for use across at least one different domain and application via reprogramming of the NPRS.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the NPRS includes KnowledgeBase-query construction rules that are programmable to define how noun phrase objects are mapped to the query for each of the devices.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising at least one database, wherein the knowledge manager transfers the query to the database.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein in response to the query the dialogue manager receives at least one object of the dialogue contribution from the database.

20. The system of claim 12, further comprising a plurality of devices, wherein each device is coupled to the device manager through a description of each device conforming to a device application programming interface (API), wherein each device description includes at least one of an activity model, a device-specific DMS, a device-specific NPRS, and code implementing further device-specific functionality.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the code implementing further device-specific functionality includes device-specific dialogue moves.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the activity model includes variables that correspond to DMS variables.

23. The system of claim 12, wherein in response to coupling of the device to the device manager the dialogue manager receives and stores information of the activity model, device-specific DMS, device-specific NPRS, and device-specific dialogue moves from the device API.

24. The system of claim 12, further comprising at least one of a speech recognition module and a language understanding module coupled to an input of the dialogue manager.

25. The system of claim 12, further comprising at least one of a language generation module and a text-to-speech module coupled to an output of the dialogue manager.

26. A dialogue-enabling device comprising:

means for receiving an input pattern generated from an acoustic signal that includes a description of a dialogue contribution from a speaker;

means for identifying the description and at least one parameter of the description using a dialogue move script (DMS), wherein the DMS corresponds to at least one of a device and an application; and

means for mapping the description to a dialogue move using the DMS, the dialogue move corresponding to the identified parameter and independent of the device and application.

27. Computer-readable medium including executable instructions, which when executed in a processing system, manage dialogue by:

receiving an input pattern generated from an acoustic signal that includes a description of a dialogue contribution from a speaker;

identifying the description and at least one parameter of the description using a dialogue move script (DMS), wherein the DMS corresponds to at least one of a device and an application; and

mapping the description to a dialogue move using the DMS, the dialogue move corresponding to the identified parameter and independent of the device and application.

28. A method comprising:

providing a plurality of generic dialogue scripts in a dialogue management system based on an information-state-update approach, wherein the dialogue scripts each include extensions to routines, wherein the extensions provide functionalities that are specific to at least one of domains, devices, and applications;

receiving an input into the dialogue management system, the input including a description of a dialogue contribution; and

mapping the received input to at least one of a plurality of core components using at least one of the generic dialogue scripts, wherein the core components include dialogue management components that are independent of at least one of domains, devices, and applications.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the generic dialogue scripts include dialogue move scripts (DMS) and noun phrase-resolution scripts (NPRS).

30. The method of claim 28, further comprising receiving additional ones of the generic dialogue scripts, wherein the additional ones extend at least one of the domains, device, and applications that interact with the dialogue management system.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the additional ones are received from at least one of new devices and new applications that couple to the dialogue management system.