System and method for enhancing voice-enabled search based on automated demographic identification

• US 9,697,206 B2
• Filed: 10/07/2015
• Issued: 07/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Interactions, LLC
• Original Assignee: Interactions, LLC
• Inventors: Johnston, Michael J., Feng, Junlan, Bangalore, Srinivas, Mishra, Taniya
• Primary Examiner(s): Han, Qi
• Application Number:
  US14/877,709
• Publication Number:
  US 20160026627A1
• Time in Patent Office: 636 Days
• Field of Search: 704246, 704251, 704231, 704235, 704243, 704270
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/433 using audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90332 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90335 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/227 of the speaker; Human-factor methodology

Abstract

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for approximating responses to a user speech query in voice-enabled search based on metadata that include demographic features of the speaker. A system practicing the method recognizes received speech from a speaker to generate recognized speech, identifies metadata about the speaker from the received speech, and feeds the recognized speech and the metadata to a question-answering engine. Identifying the metadata about the speaker is based on voice characteristics of the received speech. The demographic features can include age, gender, socio-economic group, nationality, and/or region. The metadata identified about the speaker from the received speech can be combined with or override self-reported speaker demographic information.

Claims

1. A method performed by a speech recognition system, the method comprising:

receiving recognized speech;

identifying information about a speaker of the recognized speech from the recognized speech;

generating confidence scores indicating degrees of certainty of the identified information; and

submitting the recognized speech, the information, and the confidence scores to a question-answering engine integrated with the speech recognition system, which outputs a response associated with the recognized speech using the recognized speech, the information, and the confidence scores.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises demographic features.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the demographic features comprise one of age, gender, socio-economic group, nationality, and origin.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying of the information is based on voice characteristics of the recognized speech.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the information for future use.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the storing of the information is performed in accordance with a privacy policy.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the response comprises audible speech.

8. A speech recognition system comprising:

a processor; and

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

receiving recognized speech;

identifying information about a speaker of the recognized speech from the recognized speech;

generating confidence scores indicating degrees of certainty of the identified information; and

submitting the recognized speech, the information, and the confidence scores to a question-answering engine integrated with the speech recognition system, which outputs a response associated with the recognized speech using the recognized speech, the information, and the confidence scores.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the information comprises demographic features.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the demographic features comprise one of age, gender, socio-economic group, nationality, and origin.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein identifying of the information is based on voice characteristics of the recognized speech.

12. The system of claim 8, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions which result in the operations further comprising storing the information for future use.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the storing of the information is performed in accordance with a privacy policy.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instruction stored which, when executed by a computing device, result in the computing device performing operations comprising:

receiving recognized speech at a speech recognition system;

identifying information about a speaker of the recognized speech from the recognized speech;

generating confidence scores indicating degrees of certainty of the identified information; and

submitting the recognized speech, the information, and the confidence scores to a question-answering engine integrated with the speech recognition system, which outputs a response associated with the recognized speech using the recognized speech, the information, and the confidence scores.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the information comprises demographic features.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the demographic features comprise one of age, gender, socio-economic group, nationality, and origin.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein identifying of the information is based on voice characteristics of the recognized speech.