Context-Sensitive Speech Recognition via Triphone Segmentation

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current speech recognition systems are not sufficiently reliable, especially in noisy environments, leading to operational deterioration and user dissatisfaction due to insufficient recognition and malfunctions.

Innovation Solution

The method generates phonetic representations of speech signals using context-sensitive modeling, including triphone models and polyphone models, to create variants of the initial recognition result, which are then scored and selected for further processing, ensuring better phonetic approximation and matching actual contexts.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If context dependent models (triphones) are used during phonetic recognition stage, then phonetic approximation quality is improved, but computational complexity and processing burden increase due to huge number of combinatorial possibilities

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvephonetic approximation qualityVSAvoidcomputational complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the phoneme recognition process into multiple stages: first generating an initial phonetic sequence, then separately generating context information, and finally combining them. This segmentation allows the system to handle complex triphone modeling without being overwhelmed by the combinatorial explosion of all possible phoneme-context combinations, as each component is processed independently and then integrated.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent performs preliminary generation of phonetic sequences and context information before final combination. By pre-generating the initial phonetic sequence from the speech signal and separately pre-generating context information from language models, the system prepares components that can be efficiently combined later, reducing the real-time computational burden during actual recognition.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

2Reliability

If vocabulary size is increased to improve recognition coverage, then recognition accuracy is improved, but storage capacity requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverecognition accuracyVSAvoidstorage capacity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent divides the large vocabulary handling into manageable segments by processing speech signals through multiple recognition stages. Instead of loading and processing all vocabulary entries simultaneously, the system segments the recognition process into phoneme-level processing, context generation, and sequence combination, allowing efficient handling of large vocabularies with reduced storage demands at any single processing stage.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

3Reliability

If multi-pass recognition process is used to improve reliability, then recognition accuracy is improved, but processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverecognition accuracyVSAvoidprocessing time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary generation of phonetic sequences and context information in advance, before the final combination stage. By pre-computing the initial phonetic sequence from the speech signal and pre-generating context information from language models, the system reduces the computational burden during the actual multi-pass recognition process, thereby minimizing additional processing time while maintaining improved reliability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

4Measurement precision

If context information is enforced to match between models and final sequence, then phonetic accuracy is improved, but errors are introduced due to combinatorial possibilities

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecontext matching accuracyVSAvoidrecognition reliability
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of forcing context information to match between models and final sequence (which causes errors), the patent inverts the approach: it generates the initial phonetic sequence first, then generates context information separately, and finally combines them. This inversion allows the system to accommodate natural variations in context without forcing rigid matching, thereby maintaining phonetic accuracy while avoiding the introduction of errors from combinatorial constraints.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #13The other way round (Inversion)

Data Source

PatentEP2048655B1Context sensitive multi-stage speech recognition
Publication Date: 2014.02.26 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS INC
  • EP2048655B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP2048655B1 patent drawingFigure 2

AI summary

The present invention relates to a method for speech recognition and a method for voice enrolment, comprising the steps of detecting and digitizing a speech signal representing a verbal utterance; generating a phonetic representation of the speech signal as a first recognition result; generating variants of the phonetic representation; and selecting at least one of the variants of the phonetic representation as a second recognition result.