SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TUNING AND TESTING IN A SPEECH RECOGNITION SYSTEM

• US 20090043576A1
• Filed: 10/21/2008
• Published: 02/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LumenVox, LLC. (Ai Software LLC)
• Original Assignee: LumenVox, LLC. (Ai Software LLC)
• Inventors: Bergman, Michael D., Blake, James F. II, Miller, Edward S., Danielson, Kyle N., Auckland, Alexandra L., Herold, Keith C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,962,331 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/231
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/01 Assessment or evaluation of speech recognition systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/193 Formal grammars, e.g. finite state automata, context free grammars or word networks
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/0631 Creating reference templates; Clustering

Abstract

Systems and methods for improving the performance of a speech recognition system. In some embodiments a tuner module and/or a tester module are configured to cooperate with a speech recognition system. The tester and tuner modules can be configured to cooperate with each other. In one embodiment, the tuner module may include a module for playing back a selected portion of a digital data audio file, a module for creating and/or editing a transcript of the selected portion, and/or a module for displaying information associated with a decoding of the selected portion, the decoding generated by a speech recognition engine. In other embodiments, the tester module can include an editor for creating and/or modifying a grammar, a module for receiving a selected portion of a digital audio file and its corresponding transcript, and a scoring module for producing scoring statistics of the decoding based at least in part on the transcript.

Claims

1. A method of tuning a speech recognizer, the method comprising:

playing a selected portion of a digital audio data file;

creating and/or modifying a transcript of the selected audio portion;

displaying information associated with a decode of the selected audio portion; and

determining, based at least in part on the transcript and the information associated with the decode, a modification of the speech recognizer to improve its performance.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a graphical user interface having elements for allowing selection, input, and command entry related to the playing, creating, modifying, displaying, and/or determining.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises a grammar.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises a concept.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises one or more phonemes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises a confidence score.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises an indication of an acoustic model used to decode the audio portion.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises a time stamp.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises an indication of a language model used to decode the audio portion.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises an acoustic model score.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the modification comprises modifying a grammar of the speech recognizer.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the modification comprises adding a concept, phrase, word, or phoneme to the grammar.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the modification comprises modifying a word pronunciation, dictionary, or acoustic model of the speech recognizer.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the modification comprises modifying a call flow.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the modification comprises modifying a prompt of a call flow.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising making a modification to the speech recognizer.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising iteratively performing the recited steps.

18. A system for facilitating the tuning of a speech recognizer, the system comprising:

a playback module configured to play selected portions of a digital audio data file;

an editor module configured to allow creation and modification of a transcript of the selected portions; and

a detail viewing module configured to display information associated with a decoding of the selected portions by the speech recognizer.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a user interface.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the user interface comprises a graphical user interface.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the information associated with the decoding comprises a grammar associated with the selected portions.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the grammar comprises a set of responses expected to occur in the selected portions.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the set of responses comprises phrases, words, and/or phonemes.

24. The system of claim 18, wherein the information associated with the decoding comprises a confidence score.

25. The system of claim 18, wherein the information associated with the decoding comprises an identification of an acoustic model.

26. The system of claim 18, wherein the information associated with the decoding comprises phonemes used by the speech recognizer to decode the selected portions.