Method for variable resolution and error control in spoken language understanding
View Patent ↗A method for variable resolution and error control in spoken language understanding (SLU) allows arranging the categories of the SLU into a hierarchy of different levels of specificity. The pre-determined hierarchy is used to identify different types of errors such as high-cost errors and low-cost errors and trade, if necessary, high cost errors for low cost errors.
1. A method of resolving errors in an automated spoken language recognition system comprising the steps of:
providing a hierarchical set of predetermined spoken language categories arranged in respective paths of progressively increasing specificity, each path associated with a separate category;
receiving voice utterances from a speaker;
recognizing a received voice utterance and classifying the recognized voice utterance in one of said predetermined spoken language categories;
determining, when the speaker identifies an error between his voice utterance and said classified category, whether said error is a high-cost-error or a low-cost-error; and
instructing the speaker to select a category of lesser specificity and superior to said classified category in said hierarchical path if said error is determined to be a low-cost-error.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a low-cost-error is an error between a superior category and an inferior category in the same hierarchical path.
3. A method of resolving errors in an automated spoken language recognition system comprising the steps of:
providing a hierarchical set of predetermined spoken language categories arranged in respective paths of progressively increasing specificity, each path associated with a separate category;
receiving voice utterances from a speaker;
recognizing a received voice utterance and preliminarily assigning the recognized voice utterance to one of said predetermined spoken language categories;
assigning a confidence level to the recognition of said received voice utterance;
sensing when said confidence level is below a predetermined threshold;
classifying the recognized voice utterance in a spoken language category of immediately lesser specificity than the preliminarily assigned category; and
instructing the speaker to select a category of lesser specificity and superior to said classified category in said hierarchical set.