VOICE PROCESSOR, VOICE PROCESSING METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT

• US 20140358548A1
• Filed: 02/28/2014
• Published: 12/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Nakata, Kouta
• Granted Patent: US 9,530,431 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/04 Speaking with audible presentation of the material to be studied G09B5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/025 Phonemes, fenemes or fenones being the recognition units
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/60 for measuring the quality of voice signals

Abstract

According to an embodiment, a voice processor includes a presenting unit to present text to an operator; a voice acquisition unit to acquire a voice of the operator reading aloud the text; an identifying unit to identify output intervals of phonemes included in the voice; a determination unit to determine whether each of time lengths of the output intervals is normal; a frequency acquisition unit to acquire frequency values respectively representing occurrence frequencies of contexts, respectively corresponding to the phonemes, the context including the phoneme and another phoneme adjacent to at least one side of the phoneme; and a score calculator to calculate a score representing correctness of the voice on the basis of the determination results of the time lengths of the output intervals and the frequency values of the contexts acquired respectively corresponding to the phonemes.

Claims

1. A voice processor comprising:

a presenting unit configured to present text to an operator;

a voice acquisition unit configured to acquire a voice of the operator reading aloud the text;

an identifying unit configured to identify output intervals of phonemes included in the voice of the operator;

a determination unit configured to determine whether each of time lengths of the output intervals is normal;

a frequency acquisition unit configured to acquire frequency values respectively representing occurrence frequencies of contexts, respectively corresponding to the phonemes, the context including the phoneme and another phoneme adjacent to at least one side of the phoneme; and

a score calculator configured to calculate a score representing correctness of the voice of the operator on the basis of the determination results of the time lengths of the output intervals and the frequency values of the contexts acquired respectively corresponding to the phonemes.

2. The voice processor according to claim 1, further comprising:

a weight calculator configured to calculate a weight corresponding to each of the phonemes in accordance with the frequency value of the context, wherein

the score calculator calculates, as the score, a value corresponding to a ratio of a sum of the weights corresponding to normal phonemes determined as normal to a sum of the weights corresponding to the plurality of phonemes.

3. The voice processor according to claim 2, wherein the weight calculator calculates the weight such that the weight corresponding to the phoneme for which the context has the frequency value equal to or larger than a reference value is larger than the weight corresponding to the phoneme for which the context has the frequency value smaller than the reference value.

4. The voice processor according to claim 1, further comprising a notifier configured to notify the operator of content according to the score.

5. The voice processor according to claim 1, further comprising:

a frequency storage unit configured to store therein occurrence frequencies of a plurality of contexts included in voices acquired in the past, as the frequency values;

an updating unit configured to update the frequency values, which are stored in the frequency storage unit, of the contexts corresponding to the phonemes included in the voice of the operator reading aloud the text in accordance with the score; and

a text selector configured to select, as the text, one piece of text from among a plurality of pieces of candidate text, wherein

the text selector selects the text on the basis of the frequency values of contexts corresponding to a plurality of phonemes included in the pieces of candidate text when the pieces of candidate text are read aloud.

6. The voice processor according to claim 5, wherein the text selector selects the candidate text in preference to the other candidate text, the preferred candidate text including the phonemes for which the contexts have the frequency values larger than a threshold at the head of and the end of the text and the phonemes for which the contexts have the frequency values smaller than the threshold at a part of the text other than the head and the end of the text.

7. A voice processing method, comprising:

presenting text to an operator;

acquiring a voice of the operator reading aloud the text;

identifying output intervals of phonemes included in the voice of the operator;

determining whether each of time lengths of the output intervals is normal;

acquiring frequency values respectively representing occurrence frequencies of contexts, respectively corresponding to the phonemes, the context including the corresponding phoneme and another phoneme adjacent to at least one side of the phoneme; and

calculating a score representing correctness of the voice of the operator on the basis of the determination results of the time lengths of the output intervals and the frequency values of the contexts acquired respectively corresponding to the phonemes.

8. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium containing a voice processing program that causes a computer to function as:

a presenting unit configured to present text to an operator;

a voice acquisition unit configured to acquire a voice of the operator reading aloud the text;

an identifying unit configured to identify output intervals of phonemes included in the voice of the operator;

a determination unit configured to determine whether each of time lengths of the output intervals is normal;

a frequency acquisition unit configured to acquire frequency values respectively representing occurrence frequencies of contexts, respectively corresponding to the phonemes, the context including the phoneme and another phoneme adjacent to at least one side of the phoneme; and

a score calculator configured to calculate a score representing correctness of the voice of the operator on the basis of the determination results of the time lengths of the output intervals and the frequency values of the contexts acquired respectively corresponding to the phonemes.