ORPHANED UTTERANCE DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHOD
First Claim
1. A method of classifying an out-of-domain utterance as a web search query or an orphan of a targeted language understanding dialog system, the method comprising:
- receiving an out-of-domain utterance rejected by a domain classifier of the targeted language system;
evaluating the out-of-domain utterance for one or more semantic, syntactic, part-of-speech tag, or lexical features determinative of whether the out-of-domain utterance is a web search query or an orphan of the targeted language understanding dialog system;
determining that the out-of-domain utterance is an orphan;
generating a response indicating that the out-of-domain utterance is understood as a request to perform a machine action addressed to the targeted language understanding dialog system.
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Abstract
An orphan detector. The orphan detector processes out-of-domain utterances from a targeted language understanding dialog system to determine whether the out-of-domain utterance expresses a specific intent to have the targeted language understanding dialog system to take a certain action where fallback processing, such as performing a generic web search, is unlikely to be satisfied by web searches. Such utterances are referred to as orphans because they are not appropriately handled by any of the task domains or fallback processing. The orphan detector distinguishes orphans from web search queries and other out-of-domain utterances by focusing primarily on the structure of the utterance rather than the content. Orphans detected by the orphan detector may be used both online and offline to improve user experiences with targeted language understanding dialog systems. The orphan detector may also be used to mine structurally similar queries or sentences from the web search engine query logs.
67 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method of classifying an out-of-domain utterance as a web search query or an orphan of a targeted language understanding dialog system, the method comprising:
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receiving an out-of-domain utterance rejected by a domain classifier of the targeted language system; evaluating the out-of-domain utterance for one or more semantic, syntactic, part-of-speech tag, or lexical features determinative of whether the out-of-domain utterance is a web search query or an orphan of the targeted language understanding dialog system; determining that the out-of-domain utterance is an orphan; generating a response indicating that the out-of-domain utterance is understood as a request to perform a machine action addressed to the targeted language understanding dialog system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A targeted language understanding dialog system having at least one domain, the targeted language understanding dialog system comprising:
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a feature extractor operable to extract features from an utterance; a classifier operable to receive the features as inputs, determine whether the utterance is an out-of-domain utterance not belonging to any domain associated with the classifier; an orphan detector operable to receive the out-of-domain utterance, determine whether the out-of-domain utterance is an orphan; and an interaction manager operable to process the orphans without sending the orphan to a general web search. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A computer readable medium containing computer executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform a method of detecting orphans from out-of-domain utterances in a targeted language understanding dialog system having one or more task domains, the method comprising:
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receiving an utterance via an input device associated with the targeted language understanding dialog system; processing the utterance using a set of a domain classifiers to determine if the utterance is belongs to a task domain supported by the targeted language understanding dialog system; classifying the utterance as an out-of-domain utterance when the utterance does not belong to any task domain supported by the targeted language understanding dialog system; a set of a domain classifiers to determine if the out-of-domain utterance belongs to a task domain supported by the targeted language understanding dialog system; determining a semantic shape for the out-of-domain utterance; classifying the out-of-domain utterance as an orphan when the semantic shape of the out-of-domain utterance corresponds to a reference semantic shape having a predicate and an object; generating an output indicating that the orphan is understood as not being a web search query but is not supported by the targeted language understanding dialog system; and rendering an output via an output device associated with the targeted language understanding dialog system.
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Specification