VOICE RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING RESPONSE INFORMATION

• US 20140214425A1
• Filed: 01/31/2014
• Published: 07/31/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: BAK, Eun-sang, KIM, Myung-jae, LIU, Yu, KIM, Kyung-duk, RYU, Seong-han, LEE, Geun-bae
• Granted Patent: US 9,865,252 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/249
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/08 Speech classification or search
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command

Abstract

A voice recognition apparatus and a method for providing response information are provided. The voice recognition apparatus according to the present disclosure includes an extractor configured to extract a first utterance element representing a user action and a second utterance element representing an object from a user'"'"'s utterance voice signal; a domain determiner configured to detect an expansion domain related to the extracted first and second utterance elements based on a hierarchical domain model, and determine at least one candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain as a final domain; a communicator which performs communication with an external apparatus; and a controller configured to control the communicator to transmit information regarding the first and second utterance elements and information regarding the determined final domain.

Claims

1. A dialogue type voice recognition apparatus comprising:

an extractor which is configured to extract a first utterance element representing a user action and a second utterance element representing an object from a user'"'"'s utterance voice signal;

a domain determiner which is configured to detect an expansion domain related to the extracted first and second utterance elements based on a hierarchical domain model, and determine at least one candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain as a final domain;

a communicator which is configured to perform communication with an external apparatus; and

a controller which is configured to control the communicator to transmit information regarding the first and second utterance elements and information regarding the determined final domain.

2. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hierarchical domain model comprises a candidate domain of a lowermost concept where a main action corresponding to the first utterance element and a component slot corresponding to a second utterance element are matched to each other, and a virtual expansion domain predetermined as a superior concept of the candidate domain.

3. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the domain determiner is configured to use a multi classifier to detect a subordinate candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain, when the expansion domain where the main action corresponding to the first utterance element and the component slot corresponding to the second utterance element extracted from the extractor are matched to each other is detected, and

the domain determiner is configured to detect a candidate domain where the main action corresponding to the first utterance element and the component slot corresponding to the second utterance element matched to each other, when the expansion domain is not detected.

4. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the domain determiner is configured to use at least one binary classifier to detect at least one domain from among the candidate domains, where the main action corresponding to the first utterance element and the component slot corresponding to the second utterance element are matched to each other, and the expansion domain.

5. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the domain determiner is configured to determine a user'"'"'s intention from at least one of the extracted first and second utterance elements and the detected candidate domain to determine whether or not a context initialization occurred, and when it is determined that a context initialization has not occurred, determine at least one candidate domain from among the detected candidate domains as a final domain based on a previous domain, the previous domain being the domain determined from the user'"'"'s previous utterance voice before receiving the user'"'"'s utterance voice signal.

6. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the domain determiner is configured to determine the previous domain as the final domain in response to one candidate domain from among the detected candidate domains and the previous domain corresponding to each other.

7. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the domain determiner is configured to determine the candidate domain, related to the first utterance element representing the user action, from among at least one candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain, as the final domain, in response to determining that the detected candidate domain and the previous domain are different from each other or the context initialization has occurred.

8. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the domain determiner is configured to determine all the detected candidate domains as the final domain in response to the detected candidate domain including main action information corresponding to the first utterance element representing the user action.

9. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the domain determiner is configured to determine the candidate domain selected by the user as the final domain or arbitrarily select one candidate domain from among the detected candidate domains as the final domain, in response to the detected candidate domain including the main action information corresponding to the first utterance element representing the user action.

10. The dialogue type voice recognition apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the domain determiner is configured to determine the candidate domain corresponding to the previous domain from among the detected candidate domains as the final domain, in response to there being a plurality of previous domains, one of the plurality of previous domains and one of the candidate domains corresponding to each other, and the candidate domain including main action information corresponding to the first utterance element representing the user action.

11. A method of providing response information corresponding to a user'"'"'s utterance voice in a dialogue type voice recognition apparatus, the method comprising:

extracting a first utterance element representing a user action and a second utterance element representing an object from a user'"'"'s utterance voice signal;

detecting an expansion domain related to the extracted first and second utterance elements based on a predetermined hierarchical domain model;

determining at least one candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain as a final domain; and

transmitting information regarding the first and second utterance elements and information regarding the determined final domain to an external apparatus.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the hierarchical domain model consists of a candidate domain of a lowermost concept, where a main action corresponding to the first utterance element and a component slot corresponding to a second utterance element are matched to each other, and a virtual expansion domain predetermined as a superior concept of the candidate domain

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the detecting the expansion domain comprises:

using a multi classifier to detect a subordinate candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain, when the expansion domain where the main action corresponding to the first utterance element and the component slot corresponding to the second utterance element extracted from the extractor are matched to each other is detected, and

when the expansion domain is not detected, the detecting the expansion domain incorporates using a multi-classifier to detect a candidate domain, where a main action corresponding to the first utterance element and a component slot corresponding to the second utterance element are matched to each other.

14. The method according to claim 12, wherein the detecting the expansion domain comprises using at least one binary classifier to detect at least one domain from among the candidate domains, where the main action corresponding to the first utterance element and the component slot corresponding to the second utterance element are matched to each other, and the expansion domain.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein the determining the final domain comprise determining a user'"'"'s intention from at least one of the extracted first and second utterance elements and the detected candidate domain to determine whether or not a context initialization occurred, and in response to determining that a context initialization has not occurred, determining at least one candidate domain from among the detected candidate domains as a final domain based on a previous domain, the previous domain being the domain determined from the user'"'"'s previous utterance voice before receiving the user'"'"'s utterance voice signal.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the determining the final domain comprises determining the previous domain as the final domain in response to one candidate domain from among the detected candidate domains and the previous domain corresponding to each other.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the determining the final domain comprises determining the candidate domain related to the first utterance element representing the user action from among at least one candidate domain related to the detected expansion domain as the final domain, in response to determining that the detected candidate domain and the previous domain are different from each other or the context initialization has occurred.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein the determining the final domain comprises determining all the detected candidate domains as the final domain, in response to the detected candidate domain including main action information corresponding to the first utterance element representing the user action.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the determining the final domain comprises determining the candidate domain selected by the user as the final domain or arbitrarily selecting one candidate domain from among the detected candidate domains as the final domain, in response to the detected candidate domain including the main action information corresponding to the first utterance element representing the user action.

20. The method according to claim 17, wherein the determining the final domain incorporates determining the candidate domain corresponding to the previous domain from among the detected candidate domains as the final domain, in response to there being a plurality of previous domains, one of the plurality of previous domains and one of the candidate domains corresponding to each other, and the candidate domain including main action information corresponding to the first utterance element representing the user action.