SYSTEM AND METHOD OF IMPROVING SPEECH RECOGNITION USING CONTEXT

• US 20140324428A1
• Filed: 04/30/2013
• Published: 10/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Farraro, Eric J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,626,963 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/244
• 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 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/0635 updating or merging of old and new templates; Mean values; Weighting
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/226 using non-speech characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/48 specially adapted for particular use
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/51 for comparison or discrimination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/84 for discriminating voice from noise

Abstract

A system and method are provided for improving speech recognition accuracy. Contextual information about user speech may be received, and then speech recognition analysis can be performed on the user speech using the contextual information. This allows the system and method to improve accuracy when performing tasks like searching and navigating using speech recognition.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor;

a microphone configured to record user speech; and

a speech recognition module configured to analyze the recorded user speech and detect words spoken by a user from the recorded user speech, the speech recognition module using contextual information about the recorded user speech in the analysis.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the microphone and the speech recognition module are located on a single electronic device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the microphone is located on a mobile electronic device and the speech recognition module is located on a server.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the microphone is further configured to record ambient noise and the system further comprises a context scoring module configured to analyze the ambient noise to determine the contextual information.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a sensor, and herein the contextual information is identified from sensor information detected by the sensor.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the sensor is a global positioning system module and the contextual information is location.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the sensor is a global positioning system module and the contextual information is speed.

8. A method comprising:

receiving contextual information about user speech; and

performing speech recognition analysis on the user speech, wherein the speech recognition analysis uses the contextual information.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the contextual information includes user location.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the contextual information includes speed of movement of a user.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the contextual information includes ambient noise recorded by a microphone.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the ambient noise includes music playing in the background as the user speech is recorded.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the ambient noise includes background sounds recorded as the user speech is recorded.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the performing speech recognition analysis includes analyzing the user speech based on a dictionary, and is further configured to alter the dictionary based on the contextual information.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the dictionary is altered by replacing the dictionary with a different dictionary.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the dictionary is altered by adding words pertaining to the contextual information to the dictionary.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the performing speech recognition analysis includes scoring one or more potential terms from the dictionary that match the user speech, and wherein the contextual information is used by weighting the one or more potential terms based on the contextual information.

18. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes execution of operations comprising:

receiving contextual information about user speech; and

performing speech recognition analysis on the user speech, wherein the speech recognition analysis uses the contextual information.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the speech recognition analysis includes utilizing a hidden Markov model.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the user speech is recorded by a microphone and the contextual information is detected from a non-microphone sensor.