System and method for customized voice response

• US 9,343,063 B2
• Filed: 05/08/2013
• Issued: 05/17/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group), Kia Corp.
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Duffield, Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Paras D
• Application Number:
  US13/889,717
• Publication Number:
  US 20130246072A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,105 Days
• Field of Search: 704/231, 704/236, 704/251, 704/254, 704/257, 704/2, 704/9, 704/275, 379/88.01
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/00 Speech recognition G10L17/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/187 Phonemic context, e.g. pronunciation rules, phonotactical constraints or phoneme n-grams
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/14 Use of phonemic categorisation or speech recognition prior to speaker recognition or verification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2061 Language aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/255 comprising a personalized user interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/58 including a multilanguage function
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4936 Speech interaction details speech recognition per se G10L15/00

Abstract

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for approximating an accent source. A system practicing the method collects data associated with customer specific services, generates country-specific or dialect-specific weights for each service in the customer specific services list, generates a summary weight based on an aggregation of the country-specific or dialect-specific weights, and sets an interactive voice response system language model based on the summary weight and the country-specific or dialect-specific weights. The interactive voice response system can also change the user interface based on the interactive voice response system language model. The interactive voice response system can tune a voice recognition algorithm based on the summary weight and the country-specific weights. The interactive voice response system can adjust phoneme matching in the language model based on a possibility that the speaker is using other languages.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

collecting a user-specific services list associated with a user about to use an interactive voice response system, wherein the user-specific services list identifies a plurality of services, and wherein at least two of the plurality of services are selected from a television service, a phone service, an Internet service, and a mobile device service;

analyzing how the user interacts with each service in the user-specific services list, to yield user behavior patterns, wherein each user behavior pattern comprises dialect information associated with the user;

for each service in the user-specific services list, generating country-specific weights according to the dialect information in each user behavior pattern;

selecting, using an aggregation of the country-specific weights and based at least in part on the dialect information of each user behavior pattern, an interactive voice response system language model; and

recognizing speech received from the user via the interactive voice response system using the interactive voice response system language model.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system changes a user interface using the interactive voice response system language model.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system selects language options for a splash screen using the country-specific weights.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system tunes a voice recognition algorithm using the country-specific weights.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system adjusts phoneme matching in the interactive voice response system language model using a possibility that the user is using other languages using the country-specific weights.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system tracks, while recognizing speech from the user, a number of times the user repeats speech input.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein data associated with the user-specific services list comprises one of a phone record, an internet services record, a television service record, a mobile device record, and location information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the internet services record comprises one of a user requested top level domain, a web page language encoding, a browsing history, and a viewed web page content.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the television service record comprises one of a viewing history, a time of channel changes, a content of viewed channels, a digital video recorder recording history, scheduled shows for recording, and a viewing location.

10. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, result in the processor performing operations comprising;

collecting a user-specific services list associated with a user about to use an interactive voice response system, wherein the user-specific services list identifies a plurality of services, and wherein at least two of the plurality of services are selected from a television service, a phone service, an Internet service, and a mobile device service;

analyzing how the user interacts with each service in the user-specific services list, to yield user behavior patterns, wherein each user behavior pattern comprises dialect information associated with the user;

for each service in the user-specific services list, generating country-specific weights according to the dialect information in each user behavior pattern;

selecting, using an aggregation of the country-specific weights and based at least in part on the dialect information of each user behavior pattern, an interactive voice response system language model; and

recognizing speech received from the user via the interactive voice response system using the interactive voice response system language model.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the interactive voice response system changes a user interface using the interactive voice response system language model.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the interactive voice response system selects language options for a splash screen using the country-specific weights.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the interactive voice response system tunes a voice recognition algorithm using the country-specific weights.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the interactive voice response system adjusts phoneme matching in the interactive voice response system language model using a possibility that the user is using other languages using the country-specific weights.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the interactive voice response system tracks, while recognizing speech from the user, a number of times the user repeats speech input.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein data associated with the user-specific services list comprises one of a phone record, an internet services record, a television service record, a mobile device record, and location information.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the internet services record comprises one of a user requested top level domain, a web page language encoding, a browsing history, and a viewed web page content.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the television service record comprises one of a viewing history, a time of channel changes, a content of viewed channels, a digital video recorder recording history, scheduled shows for recording, and a viewing location.

19. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing-device, result in the computing-device performing operations comprising:

collecting a user-specific services list associated with a user about to use an interactive voice response system, wherein the user-specific services list identifies a plurality of services, and wherein at least two of the plurality of services are selected from a television service, a phone service, an Internet service, and a mobile device service;

analyzing how the user interacts with each service in the user-specific services list, to yield user behavior patterns, wherein each user behavior pattern comprises dialect information associated with the user;

for each service in the user-specific services list, generating country-specific weights according to the dialect information in each user behavior pattern;

selecting, using an aggregation of the country-specific weights and based at least in part on the dialect information of each user behavior pattern, an interactive voice response system language model; and

recognizing speech received from the user via the interactive voice response system using the interactive voice response system language model.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 19, wherein the interactive voice response system changes a user interface using the interactive voice response system language model.