METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR PROCESSING SPEECH QUERIES

• US 20150120723A1
• Filed: 10/24/2013
• Published: 04/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Mondal, Anirban, Dasgupta, Koustuv, Piratla, Nischal M., Deshmukh, Om
• Application Number:
  US14/061,780
• Publication Number:
  US 20150120723A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/734
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/00 Speech recognition G10L17/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/54 for retrieval

Abstract

The disclosed embodiments illustrate methods and systems for processing a speech query received from a user. The method comprises determining one or more interpretations of the speech query using an ASR technique that utilizes a database comprising one or more interpretations of each of one or more pre-stored speech queries and a profile of each of one or more crowdworkers. The one or more interpretations are received as one or more responses from the one or more crowdworkers, in response to each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries being offered as one or more crowdsourced tasks to the one or more crowdworkers. Further, one or more search results retrieved based on the one or more determined interpretations are ranked, based on a comparison of a profile of the user with the profile of each of the one or more crowdworkers associated with the one or more determined interpretations.

Claims

1. A method for processing a speech query received from a user, the method comprising:

determining, by one or more processors, one or more interpretations of the speech query using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) technique, wherein the ASR technique utilizes a database comprising one or more interpretations associated with each of one or more pre-stored speech queries and a profile of each of one or more crowdworkers, wherein the one or more interpretations associated with each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries are received as one or more responses from the one or more crowdworkers, in response to each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries being offered as one or more crowdsourced tasks to the one or more crowdworkers; and

ranking, by the one or more processors, one or more search results retrieved based on the one or more determined interpretations, wherein the ranking is based on a comparison of a profile of the user with the profile of each of the one or more crowdworkers associated with the one or more determined interpretations.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising comparing, by the one or more processors, the speech query with the one or more pre-stored speech queries.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the one or more interpretations of the speech query are determined using the ASR technique, when the speech query is determined to be similar to at least one of the one or more pre-stored speech queries based on the comparison.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising offering, by the one or more processors, the speech query as a crowdsourced task to the one or more crowdworkers, when the speech query is determined to be different from each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries based on the comparison.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more responses comprises at least one of one or more speech inputs or one or more textual inputs, wherein the one or more speech inputs comprise at least one of one or more spoken interpretations of the pre-stored speech query or one or more spoken variations of the pre-stored speech query, wherein the one or more textual inputs comprise at least one of one or more phonetic transcriptions of the pre-stored speech query or one or more textual interpretations of the pre-stored speech query.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising validating, by the one or more processors, a response received from a crowdworker of the one or more crowdworkers based on at least one of the ASR technique, a comparison of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the one or more speech inputs of the response with a minimum SNR threshold, or a degree of similarity of the response with remaining of the one or more responses.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising storing, by the one or more processors, the response as the one or more interpretations associated with the pre-stored speech query and a profile of the crowdworker in the database, when the response is determined to be valid based on the validation.

8. A system for processing a speech query received from a user, the system comprising:

one or more processors operable to;

determine one or more interpretations of the speech query using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) technique, wherein the ASR technique utilizes a database comprising one or more interpretations associated with each of one or more pre-stored speech queries and a profile of each of one or more crowdworkers, wherein the one or more interpretations associated with each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries are received as one or more responses from the one or more crowdworkers, in response to each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries being offered as one or more crowdsourced tasks to the one or more crowdworkers, and

rank one or more search results retrieved based on the one or more determined interpretations, wherein the ranking is based on a comparison of a profile of the user with the profile of each of the one or more crowdworkers associated with the one or more determined interpretations.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are further operable to compare the speech query with the one or more pre-stored speech queries.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the one or more interpretations of the speech query are determined using the ASR technique, when the speech query is determined to be similar to at least one of the one or more pre-stored speech queries based on the comparison.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors are further operable to offer the speech query as a crowdsourced task to the one or more crowdworkers, when the speech query is determined to be different from each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries based on the comparison.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein each of the one or more responses comprises at least one of one or more speech inputs or one or more textual inputs, wherein the one or more speech inputs comprise at least one of one or more spoken interpretations of the pre-stored speech query or one or more spoken variations of the pre-stored speech query, wherein the one or more textual inputs comprise at least one of one or more phonetic transcriptions of the pre-stored speech query or one or more textual interpretations of the pre-stored speech query.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors are further operable to validate a response received from a crowdworker of the one or more crowdworkers based on at least one of the ASR technique, a comparison of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the one or more speech inputs of the response with a minimum SNR threshold, or a degree of similarity of the response with remaining of the one or more responses.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the one or more processors are further operable to store the response as the one or more interpretations associated with the pre-stored speech query and a profile of the crowdworker in the database, when the response is determined to be valid based on the validation.

15. A computer program product for use with a computing device, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium, the non-transitory computer readable medium stores a computer program code for processing a speech query received from a user, the computer program code is executable by one or more processors in the computing device to:

determine one or more interpretations of the speech query using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) technique, wherein the ASR technique utilizes a database comprising one or more interpretations associated with each of one or more pre-stored speech queries and a profile of each of one or more crowdworkers, wherein the one or more interpretations associated with each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries are received as one or more responses from the one or more crowdworkers, in response to each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries being offered as one or more crowdsourced tasks to the one or more crowdworkers, and

rank one or more search results retrieved based on the one or more determined interpretations, wherein the ranking is based on a comparison of a profile of the user with the profile of each of the one or more crowdworkers associated with the one or more determined interpretations.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the computer program code is further executable by the one or more processors to compare the speech query with the one or more pre-stored speech queries.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the one or more interpretations of the speech query are determined using the ASR technique, when the speech query is determined to be similar to at least one of the one or more pre-stored speech queries based on the comparison.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the computer program code is further executable by the one or more processors to offer the speech query as a crowdsourced task to the one or more crowdworkers, when the speech query is determined to be different from each of the one or more pre-stored speech queries based on the comparison.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein each of the one or more responses comprises at least one of one or more speech inputs or one or more textual inputs, wherein the one or more speech inputs comprise at least one of one or more spoken interpretations of the pre-stored speech query or one or more spoken variations of the pre-stored speech query, wherein the one or more textual inputs comprise at least one of one or more phonetic transcriptions of the pre-stored speech query or one or more textual interpretations of the pre-stored speech query.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program code is further executable by the one or more processors to:

validate a response received from a crowdworker of the one or more crowdworkers based on at least one of the ASR technique, a comparison of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the one or more speech inputs of the response with a minimum SNR threshold, or a degree of similarity of the response with remaining of the one or more responses, and

store the response as the one or more interpretations associated with the pre-stored speech query and a profile of the crowdworker in the database, when the response is determined to be valid based on the validation.