Automatic identification of telephone callers based on voice characteristics
First Claim
1. A method of identifying a caller of a call from the caller to a recipient, the method comprising:
- (a) receiving a voice input from the caller;
(b) applying characteristics of the voice input to a plurality of acoustic models, which comprises a generic acoustic model and acoustic models of previously identified callers, to obtain a plurality of respective acoustic scores, wherein the generic acoustic model comprises caller independent models of a plurality of speech units;
(c) identifying the caller as one of the previously identified callers or a new caller based on the plurality of acoustic scores;
(d) if the caller is identified as a new caller in step (c), generating a new acoustic model for the new caller from the caller-independent models of the generic acoustic model and modifying the caller-independent models of the speech units that are included in the voice input to represent the characteristics of the voice input received from the new caller such that the new acoustic model for the new caller and the acoustic models of any previously identified callers comprise the same plurality of speech units; and
(e) generating a user prompt, which identifies certain ones of the acoustic models of previously identified callers for merging together.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus are provided for identifying a caller of a call from the caller to a recipient. A voice input is received from the caller, and characteristics of the voice input are applied to a plurality of acoustic models, which include a generic acoustic model and acoustic models of any previously identified callers, to obtain a plurality of respective acoustic scores. The caller is identified as one of the previously identified callers or as a new caller based on the plurality of acoustic scores. If the caller is identified as a new caller, a new acoustic model is generated for the new caller, which is specific to the new caller.
75 Citations
31 Claims
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1. A method of identifying a caller of a call from the caller to a recipient, the method comprising:
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(a) receiving a voice input from the caller; (b) applying characteristics of the voice input to a plurality of acoustic models, which comprises a generic acoustic model and acoustic models of previously identified callers, to obtain a plurality of respective acoustic scores, wherein the generic acoustic model comprises caller independent models of a plurality of speech units; (c) identifying the caller as one of the previously identified callers or a new caller based on the plurality of acoustic scores; (d) if the caller is identified as a new caller in step (c), generating a new acoustic model for the new caller from the caller-independent models of the generic acoustic model and modifying the caller-independent models of the speech units that are included in the voice input to represent the characteristics of the voice input received from the new caller such that the new acoustic model for the new caller and the acoustic models of any previously identified callers comprise the same plurality of speech units; and (e) generating a user prompt, which identifies certain ones of the acoustic models of previously identified callers for merging together. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A system for identifying a caller of a call from the caller to a recipient, the system comprising:
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a receiver for receiving a voice input from the caller; an acoustic model repository comprising a plurality of acoustic models, including a generic acoustic model and acoustic models of previously identified callers, wherein the generic acoustic model comprises caller-independent models of a plurality of speech units; means for applying characteristics of the voice input to the plurality of acoustic models to produce a plurality of respective acoustic scores; means for identifying the caller as one of the previously identified callers or a new caller based on the plurality of acoustic scores; acoustic model generator means for generating a new acoustic model for the new caller if the acoustic score for the generic acoustic model is better than the acoustic scores for the acoustic models of the plurality of previously identified callers, wherein the acoustic model generator means generates the new acoustic model from the caller-independent models of the generic acoustic model and modifies the caller-independent models of the speech units that are included in the voice input to represent the characteristics of the voice input received from the new caller such that the new acoustic model for the new caller and the acoustic models of any previously identified callers comprise the same plurality of speech units; and means for generating a user prompt, which identifies certain ones of the acoustic models of previously identified callers for merging together. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computer, performs the method comprising:
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(a) receiving a voice input of a call from a caller; (b) applying characteristics of the voice input to a plurality of acoustic models, which comprises a generic acoustic model and acoustic models of previously identified callers, to obtain a plurality of respective acoustic scores that represent how well the characteristics match the respective acoustic models, wherein the generic acoustic model comprises caller-independent models of a plurality of speech units; and (c) identifying the caller as one of the previously identified callers or a new caller based on the plurality of acoustic scores (d) if the caller is identified as a new caller in step (c), generating a new acoustic model for the new caller from the caller-independent models of the generic acoustic model and modifies the caller-independent models of the speech units that are included in the voice input to represent the characteristics of the voice input received from the new caller such that the new acoustic model for the new caller and the acoustic models of any previously identified callers comprise the same plurality of speech units; and (e) generating a user prompt, which identifies certain ones of the acoustic models of previously identified callers for merging together. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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29. A computer-implemented method of identifying a caller of a call from the caller to a recipient, the method comprising:
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(a) receiving a voice input; (b) segmenting the voice input into a sequence of recognized speech units using a caller-independent, generic acoustic model, wherein the generic acoustic model comprises caller-independent models of a plurality of speech units; (c) applying characteristics of the voice input to a sequence of speech unit models of the recognized speech units within a plurality of acoustic models, which comprises the generic acoustic model and acoustic models of any previously identified callers (d) identifying the caller as one of a plurality of previously identified callers or as a new caller based on how well the characteristics of the voice input fit the plurality of acoustic models, and if the caller is identified as a new caller, generating a new acoustic model for the new caller from the generic acoustic model by modifying the speech unit models of the speech units that are included in the voice input to represent the characteristics of the voice input received from the new caller such that the new acoustic model for the new caller and the acoustic models of any previously identified callers comprise the same plurality of speech units; (e) maintaining a caller-specific language model for each of the previously identified callers based on the voice inputs from those callers; (f) applying the characteristics of the voice input to the generic acoustic model and each of the caller-specific language models to produce a plurality of recognized speech unit sequences; (g) choosing the recognized speech unit sequence that has a highest probability relative to probabilities of the other recognized speech unit sequences; (h) identifying the caller based on the recognized speech unit sequence having the highest probability; and (i) if the caller identified in step (h) is different than the caller identified in step (d), generating a user prompt of at least one member of the group comprising;
the voice input, the recognized speech unit sequence, the identified callers, the acoustic model of the caller identified in step (d), and of the caller-specific language model of the caller identified in step (h). - View Dependent Claims (30, 31)
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Specification