Speech Recognition

• US 20170256261A1
• Filed: 08/05/2016
• Published: 09/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Froelich, Raymond J.
• Granted Patent: US 10,140,988 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/02 Feature extraction for speech recognition; Selection of recognition unit
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/222 Barge in, i.e. overridable guidance for interrupting prompts
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/0635 updating or merging of old and new templates; Mean values; Weighting
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/221 Announcement of recognition results
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/225 Feedback of the input speech
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/87 Detection of discrete points within a voice signal

Abstract

A computer system comprises an input configured to receive voice input from a user, the voice input having speech intervals separated by non-speech intervals; an ASR system configured to identify individual words in the voice input during speech intervals of the voice input, and store the identified words in memory; a speech overload detection module configured to detect at a time during a speech interval of the voice input a speech overload condition; and a notification module configured to output to the user, in response to said to detection, a notification of the speech overload condition.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising:

an input configured to receive voice input from a user, the voice input having speech intervals separated by non-speech intervals;

an ASR system configured to identify individual words in the voice input during speech intervals of the voice input, and store the identified words in memory;

a speech overload detection module configured to detect at a time during a speech interval of the voice input a speech overload condition; and

a notification module configured to output to the user, in response to said to detection, a notification of the speech overload condition.

2. A computer system according to claim 1, wherein the speech overload condition is detected based on a number of words that the ASR system has identified so far in that speech interval.

3. A computer system according to claim 1, wherein the speech overload condition is detected based on a rate at which words are being identified by the ASR system in that speech interval.

4. A computer system according to claim 1, wherein the speech overload condition is detected based on a state of an AI tree being driven by the voice input.

5. A computer system according to claim 1, wherein the notifications is outputted during the speech interval whilst the user is still speaking.

6. A computer system according to claim 5, wherein the notification comprises an audible notification for interrupting the user.

7. A computer system according to claim 1, comprising a video generation module, wherein the notification comprises a visual notification outputted to the user by the video generation module.

8. A computer system according to claim 7, wherein the video generation module is configured to generate and output to the user a moving image of an avatar, wherein the visual notification is a visual action performed by the avatar.

9. A computer system according to claim 1, comprising a speech detection module configured to detect the speech and non-speech intervals.

10. A computer system according to claim 9, wherein the speech detection module is configured to monitor the set of identified words in the memory as it is updated by the ASR system.

11. A computer system according to claim 1, wherein each word of the set is stored in the memory as a string of one or more characters.

12. A computer system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a response module configured to generate and output a response to the user based on the words identified in the speech interval.

13. A computer system according to claim 12, wherein the response is outputted during the next non-speech interval is no speech overload condition is detected in the speech interval.

14. A computer-implemented method of effecting communication between a user and an artificial intelligence software agent executed on a computer, the method comprising:

receiving at an ASR system voice input from a user, the voice input having speech intervals separated by non-speech intervals;

identifying, by the ASR system, individual words in the voice input during speech intervals of the voice input, and storing the identified words in memory;

detecting at a time during a speech interval of the voice input a speech overload condition; and

outputting to the user, in response to said to detection, a notification of the speech overload condition.

15. A method according to claim 14, wherein the voice input is received from a user device via a communication network, wherein the outputting step is performed by the software agent transmitting the notification to the user device via the network so as to cause the user device to output the notification to the user.

16. A method according to claim 15, wherein the voice input is received from and the notification is outputted to the user in real-time, thereby effecting a real-time communication event between the user and the software agent via the network.

17. A method according to claim 14, the method being implemented in a communication system, wherein the communication system comprises a user account database storing, for each of a plurality of users of the communication system, a user identifier that uniquely identifies that user within the communication system;

wherein a user identifier of the software agent is also stored in the user account database so that the software agents appears as another user of the communication system.

18. A method according to claim 14, further comprising:

monitoring the set of identified words in the memory as it is updated by the ASR system, wherein the speech overload condition is detected based on the monitoring of the set of identified words.

19. A computer program product comprising an artificial intelligence software agent stored on a computer readable storage medium, the software agent for communicating with a user based on the output of an ASR system, the ASR system for receiving voice input from the user and identifying individual words in the voice input during speech intervals thereof, the software agent being configured when executed to perform operations of:

detecting at a time during a speech interval of the voice input a speech overload condition; and

outputting to the user, in response to said to detection, a notification of the speech overload condition.

20. A computer program product according to claim 19, wherein the notification is outputted to the user by transmitting it to a user device available to the user via a network so as to cause the user device to output the notification to the user.