Automated sentence planning in a task classification system

• US 8,180,647 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2011
• Issued: 05/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Walker, Marilyn A., Rambow, Owen Christopher, Rogati, Monica
• Primary Examiner(s): YEN, ERIC L
• Application Number:
  US13/230,254
• Publication Number:
  US 20110320190A1
• Time in Patent Office: 246 Days
• Field of Search: 704270-275, 704/9
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/027 Concept to speech synthesisers; Generation of natural phrases from machine-based concepts generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text G10L13/08
• 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 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• 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

The invention relates to a task classification system (900) that interacts with a user. The task classification system (900) may include a recognizer (920) that may recognize symbols in the user'"'"'s input communication, and a natural language understanding unit (900) that may determine whether the user'"'"'s input communication can be understood. If the user'"'"'s input communication can be understood, the natural language understanding unit (930) may generate understanding data. The system may also include a communicative goal generator that may generate communicative goals based on the symbols recognized by the recognizer (920) and understanding data from the natural language understanding unit (930). The generated communicative goals may be related to information needed to be obtained from the user. The system may further include a sentence planning unit (120) that may automatically plan one or more sentences based on the communicative goals generated by the communicative goal generator with at least one of the sentences plans being output to the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying a communicative goal in a speech input of a user;

generating, via a processor, a plurality of sentence plans based on the communicative goal and a dialog history database, wherein each sentence plan of the plurality of sentence plans is a viable and potentially usable prompt in response to the speech input of the user;

ranking the plurality of sentence plans to yield ranked sentence plans; and

outputting at least one ranked sentence plan to yield an output sentence plan, wherein the output sentence plan provides a best sentence plan for generating a realization for the communicative goal from among the ranked sentence plans.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a plurality of communicative goals;

determining a priority communicative goal within the plurality of communicative goals; and

ranking the plurality of sentence plans based at least in part on a comparison of the plurality of sentence plans and the priority communicative goal.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising converting the output sentence plan to speech.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the dialog history database comprises interaction information related to a set of interactions between the user and an automated dialog system, and wherein generating the plurality of sentence plans uses the interaction information.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving a training database that includes a set of learned rules, wherein ranking the plurality of sentence plans is based at least in part on the training database.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the communicative goal comprises confirming information previously obtained from the user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the communicative goal is generated using recognition and understanding data from an automated dialog system.

8. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a non-transitory storage device storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising;

identifying a communicative goal in a speech input of a user;

generating a plurality of sentence plans based on the communicative goal and a dialog history database, wherein each sentence plan of the plurality of sentence plans is a viable and potentially usable prompt in response to the speech input of the user;

ranking the plurality of sentence plans to yield ranked sentence plans; and

outputting at least one ranked sentence plan to yield an output sentence plan, wherein the output sentence plan provides a best sentence plan for generating a realization for the communicative goal from among the ranked sentence plans.

9. The system of claim 8, the instructions further comprising:

identifying a plurality of communicative goals;

determining a priority communicative goal within the plurality of communicative goals; and

ranking the plurality of sentence plans based at least in part on a comparison of the plurality of sentence plans and the priority communicative goal.

10. The system of claim 8, the instructions further comprising converting the output sentence plan to speech.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the dialog history database comprises interaction information related to a set of interactions between the user and an automated dialog system, and wherein generating the plurality of sentence plans uses the interaction information.

12. The system of claim 8, the instructions further comprising retrieving a training database that includes a set of learned rules, wherein ranking the plurality of sentence plans is based at least in part on the training database.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the communicative goal comprises confirming information previously obtained from the user.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the communicative goal is generated using recognition and understanding data from an automated dialog system.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

identifying a communicative goal in a speech input of a user;

generating a plurality of sentence plans based on the communicative goal and a dialog history database, wherein each sentence plan of the plurality of sentence plans is a viable and potentially usable prompt in response to the speech input of the user;

ranking the plurality of sentence plans to yield ranked sentence plans; and

outputting at least one ranked sentence plan to yield an output sentence plan, wherein the output sentence plan provides a best sentence plan for generating a realization for the communicative goal from among the ranked sentence plans.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the non-transitory computer-readable medium storing further instructions which, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to further perform a method comprising:

identifying a plurality of communicative goals;

determining a priority communicative goal within the plurality of communicative goals; and

ranking the plurality of sentence plans based at least in part on a comparison of the plurality of sentence plans and the priority communicative goal.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the non-transitory computer-readable medium storing further instructions which, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to further perform a method comprising converting the output sentence plan to speech.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the dialog history database comprises interaction information related to a set of interactions between the user and an automated dialog system, and wherein generating the plurality of sentence plans uses the interaction information.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the non-transitory computer-readable medium storing further instructions which, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to further perform a method comprising retrieving a training database that includes a set of learned rules, wherein ranking the plurality of sentence plans is based at least in part on the training database.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the communicative goal comprises confirming information previously obtained from the user.