System and method for creating voice profiles for specific demographics

• US 9,633,649 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2014
• Issued: 04/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bangalore, Srinivas, Mishra, Taniya
• Primary Examiner(s): Hudspeth, David
• Assistant Examiner(s): PATEL, SHREYANS A
• Application Number:
  US14/268,484
• Publication Number:
  US 20150317974A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,089 Days
• Field of Search: 704231, 704243
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/02 Methods for producing synthetic speech; Speech synthesisers
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/033 Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/047 Architecture of speech synthesisers
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/06 Creation of reference templates; Training of speech recognition systems, e.g. adaptation to the characteristics of the speaker's voice G10L15/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/08 Speech classification or search
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1807 using prosody or stress
• 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: G10L 25/48 specially adapted for particular use

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage devices for receiving an utterance from a user and analyzing the utterance to identify the demographics of the user. The system then analyzes the utterance to determine the prosody of the utterance, and retrieves from the Internet data associated with the determined demographics. Using the retrieved data, the system retrieves, also from the Internet, recorded speech matching the identified prosody. The recorded speech, which is based on the demographic data of the utterance and has a prosody matching the utterance, is then saved to a database for future use in generating speech specific to the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an utterance from a user;

analyzing, via a processor, the utterance to identify a demographic of the user and a prosody of the utterance;

retrieving, from a first remote database, data associated with the demographic of the user;

retrieving, from a second remote database, recorded speech matching the prosody of the utterance and associated with the data;

saving the data and the recorded speech in a local database; and

generating speech using the data and the recorded speech stored in the local database.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the prosody of the utterance comprises an accent, a pitch, a rate, and an energy of the utterance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the demographic of the user comprises one of an age, a gender, an ethnicity, an education level, and an economic status.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the demographic of the user comprises a geographic location.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the geographic location is a school.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data retrieved from the first remote database is retrieved from one of a blog, a social media website, and a book.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the recorded speech is extracted from video.

8. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

receiving an utterance from a user;

analyzing the utterance to identify a demographic of the user and a prosody of the utterance;

retrieving, from a first remote database, data associated with the demographic of the user;

retrieving, from a second remote database, recorded speech matching the prosody of the utterance and associated with the data;

saving the data and the recorded speech in a local database; and

generating speech using the data and the recorded speech stored in the local database.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the prosody of the utterance comprises an accent, a pitch, a rate, and an energy of the utterance.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the demographic of the user comprises one of an age, a gender, an ethnicity, an education level, and an economic status.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the demographic of the user comprises a geographic location.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the geographic location is a school.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the data retrieved from the first remote database is retrieved from one of a blog, a social media website, and a book.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the recorded speech is extracted from video.

15. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving an utterance from a user;

analyzing the utterance to identify a demographic of the user and a prosody of the utterance;

retrieving, from a first remote database, data associated with the demographic of the user;

retrieving, from a second remote database, recorded speech matching the prosody of the utterance and associated with the data;

saving the data and the recorded speech in a local database; and

generating speech using the data and the recorded speech stored in the local database.

16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the prosody of the utterance comprises an accent, a pitch, a rate, and an energy of the utterance.

17. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the demographic of the user comprises one of an age, a gender, an ethnicity, an education level, and an economic status.