Speech Morphing Communication System

• US 20120109648A1
• Filed: 10/30/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Speech Morphing, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Speech Morphing, Inc.
• Inventors: Yassa, Fathy
• Granted Patent: US 9,053,094 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/235
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/51 Translation evaluation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

A communication system is described. The communication system including an automatic speech recognizer configured to receive a speech signal and to convert the speech signal into a text sequence. The communication also including a speech analyzer configured to receive the speech signal. The speech analyzer configured to extract paralinguistic characteristics from the speech signal. In addition, the communication system includes a speech output device coupled with the automatic speech recognizer and the speech analyzer. The speech output device configured to convert the text sequence into an output speech signal based on the extracted paralinguistic characteristics.

Claims

1. A communication system comprising:

an automatic speech recognizer configured to receive a speech signal and to convert said speech signal into a text sequence;

a speech analyzer configured to receive said speech signal, said speech analyzer configured to extract paralinguistic characteristics from said speech signal; and

a speech output device coupled with said automatic speech recognizer and said speech analyzer, said speech output device configured to convert said text sequence into an output speech signal based on said extracted paralinguistic characteristics.

2. The communication system of claim 1, wherein said speech output device includes a personifier.

3. The communication system of claim 1, wherein said automatic speech recognizer converts said speech signal into said text sequence based on a first algorithm.

4. The communication system of claim 3 further comprising a second automatic speech recognizer, said second automatic speech recognizer configured to convert said speech signal to a second text sequence based on a second algorithm.

5. The communication system of claim 4 further comprising a text sequence comparator configured to compare said text sequence with said second text sequence.

6. The communication system of claim 5, wherein said text sequence comparator generates an error corrected text sequence based on the comparison of said text sequence and said second text sequence.

7. The communication system of claim 5, wherein said text sequence comparator generates one or more confidence scores for said text sequence and for said second text sequence.

8. The communication system of claim 1, wherein said output device converts said text sequence into an output speech signal using a text-to-speech algorithm.

9. A communication system comprising:

memory;

one or more processors; and

one or more modules stored in memory and configured for execution by the one or more processors, the modules comprising;

a speech input module configured to receive a speech signal;

an automatic speech recognizer module coupled with said speech input module, said automatic speech recognizer module configured to convert said speech signal into a text sequence;

a speech analyzer module coupled with said speech input module, said speech analyzer module configured to extract paralinguistic characteristics from said speech signal; and

an output speech module configured to convert said text sequence into an output speech signal including paralinguistic characteristics based on said extracted paralinguistic characteristics.

10. The communication system of claim 9, wherein said output speech module includes a personifier.

11. The communication system of claim 9, wherein said automatic speech recognizer converts said speech signal into said text sequence based on a first algorithm.

12. The communication system of claim 11 further comprising a second automatic speech recognizer module, said second automatic speech recognizer module configured to convert said speech signal to a second text sequence based on a second algorithm.

13. The communication system of claim 12 further comprising a text sequence comparator module configured to compare said text sequence with said second text sequence.

14. The communication system of claim 13, wherein said text sequence comparator module generates an error corrected text sequence based on the comparison of said text sequence and said second text sequence.

15. The communication system of claim 13, wherein text sequence comparator module generates one or more confidence scores for said text sequence and for said second text sequence.

16. The communication system of claim 9, wherein said output speech module converts said text sequence into an output speech signal using a text-to-speech algorithm.

17. A speech morphing communication system comprising:

a speech input device configured to receive a speech signal;

a plurality of automatic speech recognizers coupled with said input device, said plurality of automatic speech recognizers configured to convert said speech signal into a plurality of text sequences;

a text sequence comparator coupled with at least two of said plurality of automatic speech recognizers, said text sequence comparator configured to select one text sequence from said plurality of text sequences;

a speech analyzer coupled with said speech input device, said speech analyzer configured to extract paralinguistic characteristics from said speech signal; and

a speech output device configured to convert said selected text sequence into an output speech signal including paralinguistic characteristics based on said extracted paralinguistic characteristics.

18. A method for converting speech into text comprising:

receiving an input speech signal;

extracting one or more paralinguistic characteristics from said input speech signal;

converting said input speech signal to a text sequence; and

transforming said text sequence into an output speech signal based on said extracted one or more paralinguistic characteristics from said input speech signal.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein, transforming includes using one or more text-to-speech algorithms.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising transforming said text sequence into said output speech signal includes selected a plurality of phonemes.