Voice aware demographic personalization

• US 7,949,526 B2
• Filed: 06/04/2007
• Issued: 05/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bernstein, Neal, Zweig, Geoffrey, Ju, Yun-Cheng, Acero, Alejandro
• Primary Examiner(s): ABEBE, DANIEL DEMELASH
• Application Number:
  US11/810,086
• Publication Number:
  US 20080298562A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,450 Days
• Field of Search: 704/246, 704/251, 704/270
• US Class Current: 704/246
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/005 Language recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/26 Recognition of special voice characteristics, e.g. for use in lie detectors; Recognition of animal voices
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4211 where the identifier is used to access a profile
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/493 Interactive information services, e.g. directory enquiries ; Arrangements therefor, e.g. interactive voice response [IVR] systems or voice portals

Abstract

A voice interaction system is configured to analyze an utterance and identify inherent attributes that are indicative of a demographic characteristic of the system user that spoke the utterance. The system then selects and presents a personalized response to the user, the response being selected based at least in part on the identified demographic characteristic. In one embodiment, the demographic characteristic is one or more of the caller'"'"'s age, gender, ethnicity, education level, emotional state, health status and geographic group. In another embodiment, the selection of the response is further based on consideration of corroborative caller data.

Claims

1. A voice interaction system, comprising:

a voice recognition component configured to perform a voice recognition process to identify content information associated with an utterance spoken by a user;

a demographic characteristic recognition component configured to identify a demographic characteristic of the user based on analysis of a representation of the utterance spoken by the user;

a response data component having a plurality of potential responses stored as part of a collection of response data;

a supplementary data component having data that is configured to be cross-referenced;

a response selection component configured to supply a response, the response selection component receiving an indication of the identified content information from the voice recognition component, an indication of the demographic characteristic from the demographic characteristic recognition component, an indication of the plurality of potential responses from the response data component, and an indication of the data that is configured to be cross-referenced from the supplementary data component, the response selection component supplying the response based at least in part upon the indication of the identified content information, the indication of the demographic characteristic, the indication of the plurality of potential responses, and the indication of the data that is configured to be cross-referenced.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is age, and wherein the voice recognition component and the demographic characteristic component are implemented as a single component.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is gender, and wherein the voice recognition component and the demographic characteristic component are implemented as separate components.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is ethnicity, and wherein the data that is configured to be cross-referenced includes data about past user interactions.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is education level, and wherein the data that is configured to be cross-referenced includes user profiles.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is mood, and wherein the data that is configured to be cross-referenced includes marital status.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is geographic group, and wherein the data that is configured to be cross-referenced includes number of children in a house.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the demographic characteristic is status of health, and wherein the data that is configured to be cross-referenced includes addresses.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the data that is configured to be cross-referenced includes previous requests.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the data that is cross-referenced includes indications of correlations between users and telephone numbers.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the response is an advertisement presented audibly to the user.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the response is activation of a software component.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the response is activation of a web-based software component.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the response is activation of a component of an in-vehicle control system.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the response is activation of a component of an education application that is tailored to be educationally appropriate to the user based on an age of the user and a gender of the user.

16. A computer-implemented method of producing a personalized response from a voice interaction system, the method comprising:

receiving an utterance from a user;

providing prior information to a classifier;

based on inherent qualities of a representation of the utterance and the prior information, determining a demographic characteristic of the user;

supplying the personalized response based at least in part on the demographic characteristic; and

wherein determining a demographic characteristic comprises determining multiple demographic characteristics, wherein supplying comprises supplying based at least on the multiple demographic characteristics, wherein the multiple demographic characteristics include age and gender, and wherein the age and gender are determined utilizing the equations;

age=argmax_aP(a|phonenumber,metadata)P(audiodata|a)

gender=argmax_g={m,f}P(g|phonenumber,metadata)P(audiodata|g).

17. A computer-implemented method of producing a personalized response from a voice interaction system, the method comprising:

receiving an utterance from a user;

providing prior information to a classifier;

based on inherent qualities of a representation of the utterance and the prior information, determining a demographic characteristic of the user;

supplying the personalized response based at least in part on the demographic characteristic; and

wherein the demographic characteristic is ethnicity, and wherein the ethnicity is determined utilizing the equation;

ethnicity=argmax_eP(e|phonenumber,metadata)P(audiodata|e).