Interactive speech recognition apparatus
First Claim
1. A speech recognition system comprising:
- means for receiving an acoustic description of a portion of speech to be recognized;
means for storing an acoustic description of each word in a system vocabulary;
recognition means for making a determination of which one or more words of a recognition vocabulary, comprised of one or more words from said system vocabulary, most probably correspond to said portion of speech, said recognition means including comparing means for determining how closely the acoustic description of said portion of speech compares to the acoustic descriptions of words from said recognition vocabulary; and
first-pass means for causing said recognition means to start to perform a first recognition of said portion of speech using a first such recognition vocabulary;
control-input means for enabling an operator to input a string of one or more selected characters if he or she so desires; and
re-recognition means responsive to the input of a string of characters through said control-input means for causing said recognition means to start to perform a second recognition of said portion of speech using a second such recognition vocabulary, said re-recognition means including alphabetic filtering means for selecting a sub-vocabulary from said system vocabulary to be used as said second recognition vocabulary, said filtering means including means, responsive to said control-input means, for causing said sub-vocabulary to include an increased percent of vocabulary words specified as a function of said string of one or more characters input through said control-input means.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A speech recognition system which can perform multiple recognition passes on each word. If the recognizer is correct in its first pass, the operator may abort later passes by either pressing a key or speaking the next word. Otherwise, the operator may either wait for a second recognition pass to be performed against a larger vocabulary, or may specify one or more initial letters causing the second recognition pass to be performed against a vocabulary substantially restricted to words starting with those initial letters. Each time the user adds an additional letter to the initial string, any previous recognition is aborted and the re-recognition process is started anew with the new string. If the user types a control character after the initial string, then the string itself is used as the output of the recognizer. In one embodiment, a language model limits a relatively small vocabulary used in the first pass to the words most likely to occur given the language context of the dictated word. The system may also be used as an interactive transcription system for prerecorded speech and can operate on either discrete utterances or continuous speech. When used with prerecorded speech, the system displays the best scoring words of a recognition to the user, and, when the user choses a desired word from such a display, the system employs the portion of prerecorded speech matched against the chosen word to help determine where in that prerecorded speech the system should look for the next word to recognize.
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Citations
29 Claims
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1. A speech recognition system comprising:
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means for receiving an acoustic description of a portion of speech to be recognized; means for storing an acoustic description of each word in a system vocabulary; recognition means for making a determination of which one or more words of a recognition vocabulary, comprised of one or more words from said system vocabulary, most probably correspond to said portion of speech, said recognition means including comparing means for determining how closely the acoustic description of said portion of speech compares to the acoustic descriptions of words from said recognition vocabulary; and first-pass means for causing said recognition means to start to perform a first recognition of said portion of speech using a first such recognition vocabulary; control-input means for enabling an operator to input a string of one or more selected characters if he or she so desires; and re-recognition means responsive to the input of a string of characters through said control-input means for causing said recognition means to start to perform a second recognition of said portion of speech using a second such recognition vocabulary, said re-recognition means including alphabetic filtering means for selecting a sub-vocabulary from said system vocabulary to be used as said second recognition vocabulary, said filtering means including means, responsive to said control-input means, for causing said sub-vocabulary to include an increased percent of vocabulary words specified as a function of said string of one or more characters input through said control-input means. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A speech recognition system comprising:
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means for recording an extended acoustic description of a plurality of successive spoken words; means for storing an acoustic description of each word in a recognition vocabulary; recognition means for making a determination of which words of said recognition vocabulary most probably correspond to a given portion of speech recorded in said extended acoustic description, said recognition means including comparing means for determining how closely the acoustic description of each such portion of speech compares to the acoustic descriptions of words from said recognition vocabulary; choice display means for displaying a plurality of the words determined by said recognition means to most probably correspond to each successive portion of speech to be recognized; word selection means for enabling an operator to select which of said plurality of displayed words corresponds to said given portion of speech; and said speech recognition system further including means, responsive to a selection by said selection means of a displayed word as corresponding to said given portion of speech, for determining how much of said extended acoustic description corresponds to said selected word and supplying a successive portion of the extended acoustic description which follows that associated with the selected word to said recognition means as the next portion of speech to be recognized, and for causing said recognition means to make a determination of which words of said recognition vocabulary most probably correspond to said next portion of speech to be recognized. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A speech recognition system for recognizing a succession of words comprising:
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means for receiving an acoustic description of a portion of speech to be recognized; means for storing an acoustic description of each word in a system vocabulary; recognition means for making a determination of which one or more words of a sub-vocabulary comprised of one or more words of said system vocabulary most probably correspond to said portion of speech, said recognition means including comparing means for determining how closely the acoustic description of said portion of speech compares to the acoustic descriptions of words from said sub-vocabulary; means for storing a body of text comprised of one or more words and for associating the portion of speech to be recognized with a location in that text which can be preceded by one or more of said words first-pass means for causing said recognition means to make a first determination of which one or more words of a first sub-vocabulary of said system vocabulary most probably correspond to said portion of speech, said first pass-means including language model filtering means for selecting said first sub-vocabulary as a function of the sequence of one or more words preceding the location associated with the speech to be recognized in said body of text; and means for displaying said one or more words of said first sub-vocabulary selected by said first determination as most probably corresponding to said portion of speech; re-recognition means for causing said recognition means to start making a second determination of which one or more words of a second sub-vocabulary, which can be different from said first sub-vocabulary, most probably correspond to said portion of speech; control-input means for enabling an operator to input a command to control the re-recognition process; and means for aborting, in response to in input of said command by said operator, said second determination of which one or more words of said second sub-vocabulary most probably correspond to said portion of speech. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23)
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24. A speech recognition system comprising:
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means for receiving an acoustic description of a portion of speech to be recognized; means for storing an acoustic description of each word in a system vocabulary; recognition means for making a determination of which one or more words of a recognition vocabulary which is a sub-vocabulary consisting of one or more words of said system vocabulary most probably correspond to said portion of speech, said recognition means including comparing means for determining how closely the acoustic description of said portion of speech compares to the acoustic descriptions of words from said recognition vocabulary; first-pass means for causing said recognition means to first make a first determination of which one or more words of a first such recognition vocabulary most probably correspond to said portion of speech; re-recognition means for causing said recognition means to start to make a second determination of which one or more words of a second such recognition vocabulary most probably correspond to said portion of speech; and means for aborting said second determination in response to an abort signal from an operator of the system. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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Specification