APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ENHANCED SPEECH RECOGNITION

• US 20110004473A1
• Filed: 07/06/2009
• Published: 01/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Nice Systems Limited (Nice Ltd)
• Original Assignee: Nice Systems Limited (Nice Ltd)
• Inventors: Laperdon, Ronen, Artzi, Shimrit, Wasserblat, Moshe, Lubowich, Yuval
• Application Number:
  US12/497,718
• Publication Number:
  US 20110004473A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/243
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/02 Feature extraction for speech recognition; Selection of recognition unit
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/025 Phonemes, fenemes or fenones being the recognition units

Abstract

A method and apparatus for improving speech recognition results for an audio signal captured within an organization, comprising: receiving the audio signal captured by a capturing or logging device; extracting a phonetic feature and an acoustic feature from the audio signal; decoding the phonetic feature into a phonetic searchable structure; storing the phonetic searchable structure and the acoustic feature in an index; performing phonetic search for a word or a phrase in the phonetic searchable structure to obtain a result; activating an audio analysis engine which receives the acoustic feature to validate the result and obtain an enhanced result.

Claims

1. A method for improving speech recognition results for an at least one audio signal captured within an organization, the method comprising:

receiving the at least one audio signal captured by a capturing or logging device;

extracting at least one phonetic feature and at least one acoustic feature from the audio signal;

decoding the at least one phonetic feature into a phonetic searchable structure; and

storing the phonetic searchable structure and the at least one acoustic feature in an index.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

performing phonetic search for a word or a phrase in the phonetic searchable structure to obtain a result; and

activating at least one audio analysis engine which receives the at least one acoustic feature to validate the result and obtain an enhanced result.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising outputting the enhanced result.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the enhanced result is used for quality assurance or quality management of a personnel member associated with the organization.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the enhanced result is used for retrieving business aspects of at least one product or service offered by the organization or a competitor thereof.

6. The method of claim 2 further comprising an examination result step for examining the result and determining the audio analysis engine to be activated and the acoustic feature.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein the at least one audio analysis engine is selected from the group consisting of:

pre processing engine;

post processing engine;

language detection; and

speaker detection.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the acoustic feature is selected from the group consisting of:

pitch mean;

pitch variance, Energy mean;

energy variance;

Jitter;

shimmer;

speech rate;

Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, Delta Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients;

Shifted Delta Cepstral coefficients;

energy;

music;

tone and noise.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the phonetic feature is selected from the group consisting of:

Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), Delta MFCC, and Delta Delta MFCC.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising a step of organizing the acoustic feature prior to storing.

11. An apparatus for improving speech recognition results for an at least one audio signal captured within an organization, the apparatus comprising:

a component for extracting an phonetic feature from the at least one audio signal;

a component for extracting an acoustic feature from the at least one audio signal; and

a phonetic decoding component for generating a phonetic searchable structure from the phonetic feature.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 further comprising:

a component for searching for word or a phrase within the searchable structure; and

a component for activating an audio analysis engine which receives the acoustic feature and validates the result, and for obtaining an enhanced result.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 further comprising a spotted word or phrase examination component.

14. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the audio analysis engine is selected from the group consisting of:

pre processing engine;

post processing engine;

language detection; and

speaker detection.

15. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the acoustic feature is selected from the group consisting of:

pitch mean;

pitch variance, Energy mean;

energy variance;

Jitter;

shimmer;

speech rate;

Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, Delta Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients;

Shifted Delta Cepstral coefficients;

energy;

music;

tone and noise.

16. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the phonetic feature is selected from the group consisting of:

Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), Delta MFCC, and Delta Delta MFCC.

17. A method for improving speech recognition results for an at least one audio signal captured within an organization, the method comprising:

receiving the at least one audio signal captured by a capturing or logging device;

extracting at least one phonetic feature and at least one acoustic feature from the at least one audio signal;

decoding the at least one phonetic feature into a phonetic searchable structure;

storing the phonetic searchable structure and the at least one acoustic feature in an index;

performing phonetic search for a word or a phrase in the phonetic searchable structure to obtain a result; and

activating at least one audio analysis engine which receives the at least one acoustic feature to validate the result and obtain an enhanced result.