Method for dialog management

• US 7,167,832 B2
• Filed: 10/11/2002
• Issued: 01/23/2007
• 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:
  US10/269,502
• Publication Number:
  US 20030105634A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,565 Days
• Field of Search: 704/275, 704/251
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/355 Interactive dialogue design tools, features or methods
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4936 Speech interaction details speech recognition per se G10L15/00

Abstract

A spoken dialog system and method having a dialog management module are disclosed. The dialog management module includes a plurality of dialog motivators for handling various operations during a spoken dialog. The dialog motivators comprise an 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 method of managing a dialog in a spoken dialog system, the method comprising:

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

using 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;

receiving the further user input; and

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

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least an error handling dialog motivator.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the error handling motivator further comprises a plurality of dialog sub-motivators.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of dialog sub-motivators comprises at least a mis-recognization dialog sub-motivator.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of dialog sub-motivators comprises at least a silent dialog sub-motivator.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of dialog sub-motivators comprises at least an unexpected user-input dialog sub-motivator.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, cycling through the plurality of dialog motivators to select the dialog motivator.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least a disambiguation dialog motivator.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the disambiguation dialog motivator is selected when ambiguous semantic information is received.

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

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators further comprises an a-posteriori assumption dialog motivator.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the a-priori assumption dialog motivator is governed by predefined rules governing call flow.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein 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.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the main menu, the spoken dialog system requests the user'"'"'s telephone number.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein a-priori assumption by the 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.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the customer service representative, the spoken dialog system requests the user'"'"'s telephone number.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein a-priori assumption by the assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to an interactive voice response system if the system a call type is a vague call.

18. The method of claim 17, 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.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least a missing information dialog motivator.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the missing information motivator is selected when further user input is needed to complete a transaction.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least a continuation dialog motivator.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the continuation motivator is selected when the spoken dialog system determines to offer the user a choice to query the spoken dialog system for further information.

23. A method of communicating between a user and a computer device in a spoken dialog service using an assumption dialog motivator associated with a dialog management module, the method comprising, by the dialog management module:

creating constructs C_C, C_I, and C_T;

invoking a missing information dialog motivator to request first user input comprising the user'"'"'s home phone number;

according to the first user input, updating construct C_C and C_I

if the spoken dialog service has low confidence in the first user input, invoking a confirmation dialog motivator and updating C_C, C_I, and C_T;

if a first user confirmation response to a first confirmation dialog is negative;

updating C_C; and

invoking the missing information dialog motivator to request second user input comprising the user'"'"'s home phone number;

receiving the second user input and updating C_C and C_I accordingly;

if the spoken dialog service has a low confidence in the second user input, invoking the confirmation dialog motivator and updating C_C, C_I and C_T; and

if a second user confirmation response to a second confirmation dialog is positive, invoking the assumption dialog motivator and updating C_C and C_I accordingly.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein creating constructs C_C, C_I, and C_T further comprise creating C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(NULL), C_I Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(NULL), and C_T=NULL.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein updating constructs C_C and C_I based on the first user input further comprises setting C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(user response) and C_I=Home_Phone(user response).

26. The method of claim 25, wherein if the confirmation dialog motivator updates C_C, C_I and C_T, a value of Home_Phone for C_C is erased and maintained in C_T for possible retrieval as follows:

C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(NULL)

C_I=Home_Phone(NULL)

C_T=Rep ⋄

Key ⋄

(Unrecognized_Number,

Val ⋄

Key ⋄

(Home_Phone=NULL,

Val ⋄

Home_Phone=first user input)).

27. The method of claim 26, wherein if the user input is negative to the confirmation dialog, updating C_C and C_I further comprises the following:

C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(NULL); and

C_I=Home_Phone(NULL).

28. The method of claim 27, wherein updating C_C and C_I according to the second user input further comprises:

C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(second user input); and

C_I=Home_Phone(second user input).

29. The method of claim 23, wherein if the spoken dialog service has low confidence in the second user input, updating C_C, C_O, and C_T further comprises replacing a value for Home_Phone in C_T with the new value from C_I since the previous assumption had been negated as follows:

C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(NULL)

C_I=Home_Phone(NULL)

C_T=Rep ⋄

Key ⋄

(Unrecognized_Number,

Val ⋄

Key ⋄

(Home_Phone=NULL,

Val ⋄

(Home_Phone=second user input)).

30. The method of claim 29, wherein if the second user confirmation response is positive, invoking the assumption dialog motivator and updating C_C and C_I accordingly further comprises indexing C_T with Unrecognized_Number that is still the current context returned by a spoken language understanding module (SLU), and returning a C_I value from the SLU as follows:

C_C=Unrecognized_Number ⋄

Home_Phone(second user input); and

C_I=Home_Phone.