Speech Recognition Diagnostic System for Error Source Segmentation

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing automatic speech recognition systems face challenges in achieving high accuracy when customized for new voices, languages, or scenarios, due to insufficient user-curated data sets, leading to errors that are difficult to identify and mitigate.

Innovation Solution

The system performs diagnostics on automatic speech recognition models to identify errors, attribute them to specific sources, provide feedback, and suggest targeted datasets to improve model accuracy, specifically by generating an acoustic model error ratio and suggesting additional datasets for the acoustic model, language model, and lexicon.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If users customize automatic speech recognition systems for new voices, languages, or scenarios, then the system becomes more adaptable to specific needs, but the accuracy decreases due to insufficient user-curated datasets

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecustomization capabilityVSAvoidrecognition accuracy
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments the error analysis into three distinct components: acoustic model errors, language model errors, and lexicon errors. This segmentation allows users to identify which specific component needs improvement and provides targeted guidance for dataset curation, thereby maintaining customization while improving accuracy through focused data collection.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements a feedback mechanism that provides users with diagnostic information about their ASR system's performance, including error ratios and specific error sources. This feedback enables users to understand why accuracy decreased after customization and what specific data they need to collect to improve it, creating a closed-loop system that balances adaptability and reliability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

2Reliability

If professionally trained automatic speech recognition systems are used, then the recognition accuracy is high, but the complexity of the system increases and requires expert knowledge for customization

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverecognition accuracyVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system enables users to perform self-diagnosis and self-optimization of their ASR systems without requiring expert AI knowledge. By providing automated error analysis and actionable recommendations, the system allows users to maintain high accuracy in their customized systems through intuitive, guided interactions rather than requiring deep technical expertise.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The diagnostic system acts as an intermediary between the complex ASR model and the end user. It translates complex model behaviors into understandable error categories and provides bridge guidance, allowing users to effectively customize and optimize systems without needing to understand the underlying AI complexity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

3Reliability

If users curate customized datasets to improve accuracy, then the recognition performance improves, but the time and effort required for dataset preparation increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverecognition accuracyVSAvoiddataset preparation time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system recommends collecting datasets selectively focused on the specific error sources identified in the diagnostic analysis, rather than requiring comprehensive dataset collection. Users only need to gather data for the particular components (acoustic, language, or lexicon) that are causing errors, significantly reducing the time and effort required while still achieving accuracy improvements.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

4Adaptability or versatility

If the automatic speech recognition system is customized for specific scenarios, then the adaptability to new applications improves, but the difficulty of identifying and mitigating errors increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvescenario customizationVSAvoiderror identification difficulty
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments errors into three distinct categories (acoustic model, language model, and lexicon errors) with specific characteristics and mitigation strategies for each. This segmentation makes error identification straightforward even in customized scenarios, as users can directly map observed errors to the appropriate category and follow targeted remediation steps.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system uses visual indicators (error ratios and categorization) to highlight different types of errors, making them easily distinguishable. By 'color-coding' errors through systematic categorization, the system transforms the complex task of error identification in customized scenarios into a simple visual analysis task.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #32Color changes

Data Source

PatentEP4550312A1Diagnostic service in speech recognition
Publication Date: 2025.05.07 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC
  • EP4550312A1 patent drawingFigure 1
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  • EP4550312A1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A test dataset comprises a text transcription and audio data synthesized thereon. A system: obtains a first output based on the test dataset, identifies a first set of errors in the first output and distinguishes between one or more errors in the first set according to different types of errors associated with a lexicon; obtains a second output corresponding to a language model based on the test dataset; identifies a second set of errors in the second output and distinguishes between one or more errors in the second set according to different types of errors associated with a language model; generates a language model error ratio and a lexicon error ratio; and based on the first and second sets of errors, distinguishes between one or more additional datasets configured to be applied to the language model and the lexicon to facilitate an improvement in the automatic speech recognition system.