Recognizing Accented Speech

• US 20170193989A1
• Filed: 03/21/2017
• Published: 07/06/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Gray, Kristin A.
• Granted Patent: US 10,242,661 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/00 Speech recognition G10L17/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/005 Language recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/01 Assessment or evaluation of speech recognition systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1807 using prosody or stress
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/187 Phonemic context, e.g. pronunciation rules, phonotactical constraints or phoneme n-grams
• 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 2015/227 of the speaker; Human-factor methodology

Abstract

Techniques (300, 400, 500) and apparatuses (100, 200, 700) for recognizing accented speech are described. In some embodiments, an accent module recognizes accented speech using an accent library based on device data, uses different speech recognition correction levels based on an application field into which recognized words are set to be provided, or updates an accent library based on corrections made to incorrectly recognized speech.

Claims

1. (canceled)

2. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, at a client device, a correction to a transcription of an utterance that was incorrectly recognized by an automated speech recognizer using multiple accent libraries;

transmitting, by the client device and to the server-based automated speech recognizer, a request to update each of the multiple accent libraries based at least on the correction;

receiving, by the client device, a respective update for each of the multiple accent libraries; and

obtaining a transcription of a subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the request to update each of the multiple accent libraries includes demographic data of a user of the client device.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the demographic data of the user of the client device includes an age range, gender, native language, and a geographic location where the user is located.

5. The method of claim 3, comprising:

obtaining an additional transcription of an additional subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the multiple accent libraries based on demographic data of an additional user of the computing device who provided the additional subsequently received utterance not corresponding to the demographic data of the user.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein obtaining a transcription of a subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries comprises:

obtaining the transcription of the subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries based on demographic data of an additional user of the computing device who provided the additional subsequently received utterance corresponding to the demographic data of the user.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the demographic data of the user is based on countries of addresses stored in an address book of the client device.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the correction to the transcription of the utterance was received at the client device from a first user, and

the subsequently received utterance is received from a second, different user.

9. A system comprising:

one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving, at a client device, a correction to a transcription of an utterance that was incorrectly recognized by an automated speech recognizer using multiple accent libraries;

transmitting, by the client device and to the server-based automated speech recognizer, a request to update each of the multiple accent libraries based at least on the correction;

receiving, by the client device, a respective update for each of the multiple accent libraries; and

obtaining a transcription of a subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the request to update each of the multiple accent libraries includes demographic data of a user of the client device.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the demographic data of the user of the client device includes an age range, gender, native language, and a geographic location where the user is located.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise:

obtaining an additional transcription of an additional subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the multiple accent libraries based on demographic data of an additional user of the computing device who provided the additional subsequently received utterance not corresponding to the demographic data of the user.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein obtaining a transcription of a subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries comprises:

obtaining the transcription of the subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries based on demographic data of an additional user of the computing device who provided the additional subsequently received utterance corresponding to the demographic data of the user.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the demographic data of the user is based on countries of addresses stored in an address book of the client device.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein:

the correction to the transcription of the utterance was received at the client device from a first user, and

the subsequently received utterance is received from a second, different user.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing software comprising instructions executable by one or more computers which, upon such execution, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

receiving, at a client device, a correction to a transcription of an utterance that was incorrectly recognized by an automated speech recognizer using multiple accent libraries;

transmitting, by the client device and to the server-based automated speech recognizer, a request to update each of the multiple accent libraries based at least on the correction;

receiving, by the client device, a respective update for each of the multiple accent libraries; and

obtaining a transcription of a subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries.

17. The medium of claim 16, wherein the request to update each of the multiple accent libraries includes demographic data of a user of the client device.

18. The medium of claim 17, wherein the demographic data of the user of the client device includes an age range, gender, native language, and a geographic location where the user is located.

19. The medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

obtaining an additional transcription of an additional subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the multiple accent libraries based on demographic data of an additional user of the computing device who provided the additional subsequently received utterance not corresponding to the demographic data of the user.

20. The medium of claim 17, wherein obtaining a transcription of a subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries comprises:

obtaining the transcription of the subsequently received utterance by the automated speech recognizer using the updated multiple accent libraries based on demographic data of an additional user of the computing device who provided the additional subsequently received utterance corresponding to the demographic data of the user.

21. The medium of claim 16, wherein:

the correction to the transcription of the utterance was received at the client device from a first user, and

the subsequently received utterance is received from a second, different user.