System for dialog management

• US 7,139,717 B1
• Filed: 10/11/2002
• Issued: 11/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Abella, Alicia, Gorin, Allen Louis
• Primary Examiner(s): Smits, Talivaldis Ivars
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ng, Eunice
• Application Number:
  US10/269,449
• Time in Patent Office: 1,502 Days
• Field of Search: 704/275, 704/251
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4936 Speech interaction details speech recognition per se G10L15/00

Abstract

A spoken dialog system having a dialog management module is disclosed. The dialog management module includes a plurality of dialog motivators for handling various operations during a spoken dialog. The dialog motivators comprise error-handling, disambiguation, assumption, confirmation, missing information, and continuation. The spoken dialog system uses the assumption dialog motivator in either a-priori or a-posteriori modes. A-priori assumption is based on predefined requirements for the call flow and a-posteriori assumption can work with the confirmation dialog motivator to assume the content of received user input and confirm received user input.

Claims

1. A spoken dialog system for communicating with a user, the spoken dialog system comprising an automatic speech recognition module, a spoken language understanding module, a dialog manager module, and a text-to-speech module, wherein the dialog manager module:

receives user input through a spoken dialog between the spoken dialog system and a user;

uses the user input to select a dialog motivator from a plurality of dialog motivators, the plurality of dialog motivators including an assumption dialog motivator and a confirmation dialog motivator; and

when the spoken dialog system requests further user input and invokes the confirmation dialog motivator to confirm the further user input, the dialog manager module;

receives the further user input; and

if a confidence value associated with understanding the further user input is below a threshold value, invokes the assumption dialog motivator to present assumed further user input during a confirmation dialog.

2. The spoken dialog system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least an a-priori assumption dialog motivator.

3. The spoken dialog system of claim 2, wherein the a-priori assumption dialog motivator is governed by predefined rules governing call flow.

4. The spoken dialog system of claim 3, wherein an a-priori assumption by the assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to a main menu of an interactive voice response system if the system cannot classify the user as wanting a concrete call type.

5. The spoken dialog system of claim 4, wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the main menu, the spoken dialog system requests the user'"'"'s telephone number.

6. The spoken dialog system of claim 3, wherein an a-priori assumption by the a-priori assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to a customer service representative if the system cannot classify the user as wanting a concrete call type.

7. The spoken dialog system of claim 6, wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the customer service representative, the spoken dialog system requests the user'"'"'s telephone number.

8. The spoken dialog system of claim 3, wherein an a-priori assumption by the a-priori assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to an interactive voice response system if the call type is a vague call.

9. The spoken dialog system of claim 8, wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the interactive voice response system, the spoken dialog system requests the user'"'"'s telephone number.

10. The spoken dialog system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators further comprises an a-posteriori assumption dialog motivator.