Multi-slot dialog systems and methods

• US 20070255566A1
• Filed: 04/17/2007
• Published: 11/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: [24]7.ai, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Voxify, Inc. ([24]7.ai, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lopez-Amaro, Jesus, Nguyen, Patrick, Desai, Amit, Shana'a, Adeeb
• Granted Patent: US 7,747,438 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/257
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4936 Speech interaction details speech recognition per se G10L15/00

Abstract

Systems and methods for constructing a series of interactions with a user to collect multiple pieces of related information for the purpose of accomplishing a specific goal or topic (a multi-slot dialog) using a component-based approach are disclosed. The method generally includes outputting a primary header prompt to elicit values for slots in a segment from the user, receiving a primary user response containing a value for each slot in at least a subset of the slots in the segment, processing the primary user response to determine at least one possible recognition value for each slot contained in the primary user response, filling each slot contained in the primary user response with a matched value selected from the corresponding possible recognition values, and repeating the outputting, receiving, processing and filling for any unfilled slots in the segment until all slots in the segment of slots are filled.

Claims

1-28. -28. (canceled)

29. A computer program product embodied on a computer readable medium, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

enable at least one unfilled slot in a segment of slots;

output a primary header prompt, the primary header prompt being a prompt for eliciting values for a prompted slot set from the user, the prompted slot set including at least one enabled slot in the segment;

receive a primary user response, the primary user response containing a value for each slot in a response slot set the response slot set including at least one slot in the segment;

process the primary user response to determine at least one possible recognition value for each slot contained in the primary user response, each slot contained in the primary user response being either a member of the prompted slot set and a remaining unfilled slot in the segment that is a non-member of the prompted slot set;

fill each slot contained in the primary user response with a matched value selected from the corresponding at least one possible recognition value; and

repeat the outputting, receiving, processing and filling for any unfilled slots in the segment until all slots in the segment of slots are filled.

30. The computer program product of claim 29, further including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:

perform turns to at least one of confirm and clarify the matched slot values for slots contained in the primary user response.

31. The computer program product of claim 30, wherein the at least one of confirm and clarify is selected from the group consisting of silently accept a best match, passively confirm the best match, actively confirm the best match, disambiguate among the best matches, and notify the user of a non-recognition.

32. The computer program product of claim 31, wherein the at least one of confirm and clarify is selected based on the number of possible recognition values for the slots in the primary user response and a corresponding confidence level for each of the possible recognition values.

33. The computer program product of claim 31, wherein when the at least one of confirm and clarify is an active confirmation, the performing turns includes recognizing a user confirmation response as one of a confirmation, a cancellation, and a cancellation and correction, and wherein when the user confirmation response is a cancellation and correction, the correction is processed by processing the correction to determine at least one possible recognition value for each slot contained in the correction.

34. The computer program product of claim 31, wherein when the at least one of confirm and clarify is a passive confirmation, the performing turns includes recognizing a user passive confirmation response as one of a response to a next primary header prompt, a confirmation, a cancellation, and a cancellation and correction, and wherein when the user passive confirmation response is a cancellation and correction, the correction is processed by processing the correction to determine at least one possible recognition value for each slot contained in the correction.

36. The computer program product of claim 29, wherein the processing of the primary user response includes applying grammar rules to facilitate recognition of possible values for a corresponding slot.

37. The computer program product of claim 29, wherein the outputting the primary header prompt depends on the set of unfilled segments.

38. The computer program product of claim 29, wherein the outputting and the receiving is one of text-based and speech-based.

35. (canceled)