VERBAL WEB SEARCH WITH IMPROVED ORGANIZATION OF DOCUMENTS BASED UPON VOCAL GENDER ANALYSIS

• US 20070061314A1
• Filed: 11/21/2006
• Published: 03/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Outland Research LLC
• Original Assignee: Outland Research LLC
• Inventors: Rosenberg, Louis
• Application Number:
  US11/562,036
• Publication Number:
  US 20070061314A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A computer implemented method of organizing a set of documents, comprising receiving verbal utterances from a user; processing the verbal utterances using gender analysis routines, thereby determining a verbally identified gender of the user; processing the verbal utterances using speech recognition routines, thereby determining the content of a search query uttered by the user; identifying a set of documents responsive to the search query based at least in part upon the content of the search query uttered by the user; assigning a score to each identified document based upon a correlation between gender-usage data for each document in the set and the verbally identified gender of the user, the gender-usage data describing at least one of a number and frequency of users who have previously accessed the document who are of a particular gender; and organizing the documents based at least in part on the assigned score.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of organizing a set of documents, comprising:

receiving verbal utterances from a user;

processing the verbal utterances using gender analysis routines, thereby determining a verbally identified gender of the user;

processing the verbal utterances using speech recognition routines, thereby determining the content of a search query uttered by the user;

identifying a set of documents responsive to the search query based at least in part upon the content of the search query uttered by the user;

assigning a score to each identified document based upon a correlation between gender-usage data for each document in the set and the verbally identified gender of the user, the gender-usage data describing at least one of a number and frequency of users who have previously accessed the document who are of a particular gender; and

organizing the documents based at least in part on the score.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the gender-usage data describes a number of users of the particular gender who accessed the document during a predetermined period of time.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the gender-usage data describes a frequency with which users of the particular gender accessed the document during a predetermined period of time.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein

the verbally identified gender further includes a gender-correlation factor of the user, the gender-correlation factor indicating a degree of statistical relevance that gender has for predicting a document preference for the user;

and

assigning a score to each identified document further comprises assigning the score based in part upon the gender-correlation factor.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4 further comprising adjusting the gender-correlation factor based on document viewing behavior of the user.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the verbally identified gender includes a gender-confidence value indicating a degree of confidence in the verbally identified gender of the user.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6 wherein assigning a score to each identified document further comprises assigning the score based in part upon the gender-confidence value.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

correlating the gender-usage data for each document with rating data for that document, the rating data indicating a level of usefulness of the identified document to one or more previous users who accessed the document and who are of the particular gender, wherein

assigning a score to each identified document further comprises assigning the score to each identified document based upon the correlation between the rating data for each document and the identified-gender data.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 8 further comprising receiving the rating data from the user.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 8 further comprising deriving the rating data from actions of the user.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

obtaining identified-age data for the user, the identified-age data including information describing a presumed age of the user, wherein assigning a score to each identified document further comprises assigning the score based upon a correlation between age-usage data for each document and the identified-age data for the user, the age-usage data for each document describing at least one of a number and frequency of users who have previously accessed the document who are of a particular age, age range, or age grouping.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 11 wherein the identified age data is determined based at least in part upon at least one of a voice analysis of the verbal utterance from the user and a facial analysis of facial image data of the user.

13. An apparatus for organizing a collection of documents comprising:

circuitry having executable instructions; and

at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to perform operations of;

receiving verbal utterances from a user;

processing the verbal utterances using gender analysis routines, thereby determining a verbally identified gender of the user;

processing the verbal utterances using speech recognition routines, thereby determining the content of a search query uttered by the user;

identifying a set of documents responsive to the search query based at least in part upon the content of the search query uttered by the user;

assigning a score to each identified document based upon a correlation between gender-usage data for each document in the set and the verbally identified gender of the user, the gender-usage data having been determined at least in part based on at least one of a number and frequency of users who have previously accessed the document who are of a particular gender; and

organizing the documents based at least in part on the score.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the gender-usage data describes a number of users of the particular gender who accessed the document during a predetermined period of time.

15. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the gender-usage data describes a frequency with which users of the particular gender accessed the document during a predetermined period of time.

16. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein

the verbally identified gender further includes a gender-correlation factor of the user, the gender-correlation factor indicating a degree of statistical relevance that gender has for predicting a document preference for the user;

and

assigning a score to each identified document further comprises assigning the score based in part upon the gender-correlation factor.

17. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the verbally identified gender includes a gender-confidence value indicating a degree of confidence in the verbally identified gender of the user.

18. A computer implemented method of organizing a set of documents, comprising:

receiving verbal utterances from a user;

processing the verbal utterances using gender analysis routines, thereby determining a verbally identified gender of the user;

receiving a search query from a user in either a verbal or textual form;

identifying a set of documents responsive to the search query;

assigning a score to each identified document based upon a correlation between gender-usage data for each document in the set and the verbally identified gender of the user, the gender-usage data describing prior usage of the document by users who are of a particular gender; and

organizing the documents based at least in part on the score.

19. The computer implemented method of claim 18 wherein the gender-usage data describes a number of users of the particular gender who accessed the document during a predetermined period of time.

20. The computer implemented method of claim 18 wherein the gender-usage data describes a frequency with which users of the particular gender accessed the document during a predetermined period of time.

21. The computer implemented method of claim 18 wherein

the verbally identified gender further includes a gender-correlation factor of the user, the gender-correlation factor indicating a degree of statistical relevance that gender has for predicting a document preference for the user;

and

assigning a score to each identified document further comprises assigning the score based in part upon the gender-correlation factor.