INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD AND PROGRAM

• US 20160328379A1
• Filed: 10/27/2014
• Published: 11/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: TSUNOKAWA, MOTOKI
• Granted Patent: US 9,965,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/433 using audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/634 Query by example, e.g. query by humming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/268 Morphological analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/35 Discourse or dialogue representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition

Abstract

An information processing apparatus includes: an intention understanding unit configured to understand intention of a question inputted from a user; and an information extracting unit configured to extract response basic information which is a response to the question understood by the intention understanding unit and response addition information having relationship with the response basic information from a plurality of pieces of knowledge information including knowledge information relating to the user. Each piece of knowledge information includes a plurality of information elements and relationship information indicating relationship among the plurality of information elements. The information extracting unit extracts the response addition information from a group of information elements having relationship with an information element extracted as the response basic information and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, directly or via one or more information elements.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus comprising:

an intention understanding unit configured to understand intention of a question inputted from a user; and

an information extracting unit configured to extract response basic information which is a response to the question understood by the intention understanding unit and response addition information having relationship with the response basic information from a plurality of pieces of knowledge information including knowledge information relating to the user,

wherein each piece of knowledge information includes a plurality of information elements and relationship information indicating relationship among the plurality of information elements, and

wherein the information extracting unit extracts the response addition information from a group of information elements having relationship with an information element extracted as the response basic information and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, directly or via one or more information elements.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the information extracting unit specifies a first information element corresponding to the question understood by the intention understanding unit and extracts a second information element as the response basic information, the second information element having relationship with the information element.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the information extracting unit extracts a fourth information element as the response addition information, the fourth information element having predetermined relationship with a third information element directly associated with a predetermined information element.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the predetermined relationship means that the third information element and the fourth information element have relationship of an event and a countermeasure to the event.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4,

wherein when the group of information elements includes a plurality of third information elements, the information extracting unit selects at least any of the third information elements from the plurality of third information elements based on scores set in advance to the third information elements and extracts the fourth information element having the predetermined relationship with the selected third information element as the response addition information.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4,

wherein when the group of the information elements includes a plurality of third information elements, the information extracting unit selects at least any of the third information elements from the plurality of third information elements based on strength of relationship between each of the plurality of third information elements and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, and extracts the fourth information element having the predetermined relationship with the selected third information element as the response addition information.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the information extracting unit extracts, as the response addition information, a fifth information element associated with a predetermined information element.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a response generating unit configured to generate a response sentence based on the response basic information and the response addition information.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the group of information elements has relationship with the information element extracted as the response basic information and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, without involving an information element corresponding to the question.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the knowledge information further includes at least any of common knowledge information, context information indicating an environment in which the user is located, and dynamic information indicating an event in the world.

11. An information processing method comprising:

understanding intention of a question inputted from a user; and

extracting response basic information which is a response to the understood question and response addition information having relationship with the response basic information from a plurality of pieces of knowledge information including knowledge information relating to the user by a processor,

wherein each piece of knowledge information includes a plurality of information elements and relationship information indicating relationship among the plurality of information elements, and

wherein extraction of the response addition information includes extraction of the response addition information from a group of information elements having relationship with an information element extracted as the response basic information and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, directly or via one or more information elements.

12. A program causing a computer to function as an information processing apparatus comprising:

an intention understanding unit configured to understand intention of a question inputted from a user; and

an information extracting unit configured to extract response basic information which is a response to the question understood by the intention understanding unit and response addition information having relationship with the response basic information from a plurality of pieces of knowledge information including knowledge information relating to the user,

wherein each piece of knowledge information includes a plurality of information elements and relationship information indicating relationship among the plurality of information elements, and

wherein the information extracting unit extracts the response addition information from a group of information elements having relationship with an information element extracted as the response basic information and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, directly or via one or more information elements.