Voice Data Retrieval System and Program Product Therefor

• US 20130132090A1
• Filed: 11/09/2012
• Published: 05/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: KANDA, Naoyuki
• Application Number:
  US13/673,444
• Publication Number:
  US 20130132090A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/270.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/685 using automatically derived transcript of audio data, e.g. lyrics speech recognition G10L15/00
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/088 Word spotting

Abstract

A voice data retrieval system including an inputting device of inputting a keyword, a phoneme converting unit of converting the inputted keyword in a phoneme expression, a voice data retrieving unit of retrieving a portion of a voice data at which the keyword is spoken based on the keyword in the phoneme expression, a comparison keyword creating unit of creating a set of comparison keywords having a possibility of a confusion of a user in listening to the keyword based on a phoneme confusion matrix for each user, and a retrieval result presenting unit of presenting a retrieval result from the voice data retrieving unit and the comparison keyword from the comparison keyword creating unit to a user.

Claims

1. A voice data retrieval system comprising:

an inputting device of inputting a keyword;

a phoneme converting unit of converting the inputted keyword in a phoneme expression;

a voice data retrieving unit of retrieving a portion of a voice data at which the keyword is spoken based on the keyword in the phoneme expression;

a comparison keyword creating unit of creating a set of comparison keywords separately from the keyword having a possibility of a confusion of a user in listening to the keyword based on the keyword in the phoneme expression; and

a retrieval result presenting unit of presenting a retrieval result from the voice data retrieving unit and the comparison keyword from the comparison keyword creating unit to the user.

2. The voice data retrieval system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a phoneme confusion matrix for each user;

wherein the comparison keyword creating unit creates the comparison keyword based on the phoneme confusion matrix.

3. The voice data retrieval system according to claim 2, further comprising:

a language information inputting unit of inputting a piece of information of a language which the user can understand; and

a phoneme confusion matrix creating unit of creating the phoneme confusion matrix based on the piece of information provided from the language information inputting unit.

4. The voice data retrieval system according to claim 1, wherein the comparison keyword creating unit calculates an edit distance between the keyword in the phoneme expression and a phoneme expression of a word registered in a word dictionary, and determines the word having the edit distance equal to or less than a threshold to be the comparison keyword.

5. The voice retrieval system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a voice synthesizing unit of synthesizing a voice(s) of either one or both of the keyword inputted by the user and the comparison keyword created by the comparison keyword creating unit,

wherein the retrieval result presenting unit presents a synthesized voice from the voice synthesizing unit to the user.

6. The voice data retrieval system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a comparison keyword checking unit of removing an unnecessary comparison keyword candidate by comparing a comparison keyword candidate created by the comparison keyword creating unit and the retrieval result of the voice data retrieving unit.

7. The voice data retrieval system according to claim 6, wherein the comparison keyword checking unit removes the unnecessary voice data retrieval result by comparing the comparison keyword candidate and the retrieval result of the voice data retrieving unit.

8. A computer readable medium storing a program causing a computer to execute a process for functioning as a voice data retrieval system, the process comprising:

converting an inputted keyword in a phoneme expression;

retrieving a portion of a voice data at which the keyword is spoken based on the keyword in the phoneme expression;

creating a set of comparison keywords separately from the keyword having a possibility of a confusion of a user in listening to the keyword based on the keyword in the phoneme expression; and

presenting a retrieval result and the comparison keyword to the user.

9. The computer readable medium according to claim 8 storing the program causing the computer to execute the process for functioning as the voice data retrieval system, the process further comprising:

creating a comparison keyword based on a phoneme confusion matrix.

10. The computer readable medium according to claim 9 storing the program causing the computer to execute the process for functioning as the voice data retrieval system, the process further comprising:

inputting a piece of information of a language which the user can understand; and

creating the phoneme confusion matrix based on the piece of information.

11. The computer readable medium according to claim 8 storing the program causing the computer to execute the process for functioning as the voice data retrieval system, the process further comprising:

calculating an edit distance between the keyword in the phoneme expression and a phoneme expression of a word registered in a word dictionary; and

making a word having the edit distance equal to or less than the threshold function as a comparison keyword.

12. The computer readable medium according to claim 8 storing the program causing the computer to execute the process for functioning as the voice data retrieval system, the process further comprising:

synthesizing a voice(s) of either one or both of the keyword inputted by the user and the comparison keyword; and

presenting a synthesized voice to the user.

13. The computer readable medium according to claim 8 storing the program causing the computer to execute the process for functioning as the voice data retrieval system, the process further comprising:

comparing a comparison keyword candidate and a retrieval result; and

removing an unnecessary comparison keyword candidate.

14. The computer readable medium according to claim 13 storing the program causing the computer to execute the process for functioning as the voice data retrieval system, the process further comprising:

removing the unnecessary voice data retrieval result by comparing the comparison keyword candidate and the retrieval result.