IP Library Granted Patent US 9,824,682
Granted Patent B2
US 9,824,682 · App. 14/886,650 · Granted Nov 21, 2017

System and method for robust access and entry to large structured data using voice form-filling

Inventors: Cyril Georges Luc Allauzen (Long Island City, NY); Sarangarajan Parthasarathy (Mountain View, CA)
Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc.
G10L15/02G06F17/243G10L15/00G10L15/06G10L15/063G10L15/187G10L15/19G10L15/197G10L2015/025G10L2015/081G10L2015/088
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 9,824,682
App. No.
14/886,650
Granted
Nov 21, 2017
Kind
B2
Abstract

A method, apparatus and machine-readable medium are provided. A phonotactic grammar is utilized to perform speech recognition on received speech and to generate a phoneme lattice. A document shortlist is generated based on using the phoneme lattice to query an index. A grammar is generated from the document shortlist. Data for each of at least one input field is identified based on the received speech and the generated grammar.

Claims (37)

1. A method comprising:

receiving a speech;

recognizing the speech using a phonotactic grammar to generate a phone lattice;

removing silence and filler words from the phone lattice, to yield a revised phone lattice;

normalizing, via a processor, costs in the revised phone lattice such that a cost of a best path is set to zero;

generating a cost-normalized query using factors of interest, wherein an index of words is indexed by the factors of interest;

generating, via the processor and by performing a first pass of entries in a database, a shortlist of recognized speech possibilities using the revised phone lattice, the index of words, and indices contained in the cost-normalized query;

performing a second pass on the shortlist of recognized speech possibilities using a grammar generated from the entries in the database to obtain a final result; and

providing a response to the speech based on the final result.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the index of words is generated based on a plurality of training phoneme lattices and factors of interest from valid entries in a database, wherein the factors of interest comprise trigrams.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the factors of interest further comprise N-grams based on the valid entries in the database.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the phonotactic grammar is unsmoothed and is used to recognize only N-grams which have been seen in data used to train the phonotactic grammar.

5. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a speech;

recognizing the speech using a phonotactic grammar to generate a phone lattice;

removing silence and filler words from the phone lattice, to yield a revised phone lattice;

normalizing costs in the revised phone lattice such that a cost of a best path is set to zero;

generating a cost-normalized query using factors of interest, wherein an index of words is indexed by the factors of interest;

generating, by performing a first pass of entries in a database, a shortlist of recognized speech possibilities using the revised phone lattice, the index of words, and indices contained in the cost-normalized query;

performing a second pass on the shortlist of recognized speech possibilities using a grammar generated from the entries in the database to obtain a final result; and

providing a response to the speech based on the final result.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the index of words is generated based on a plurality of training phoneme lattices and factors of interest from valid entries in a database, wherein the factors of interest comprise trigrams.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the factors of interest further comprise N-grams based on the valid entries in the database.

8. The system of claim 5 , wherein the phonotactic grammar is unsmoothed and is used to recognize only N-grams which have been seen in data used to train the phonotactic grammar.

9. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving a speech;

recognizing the speech using a phonotactic grammar to generate a phone lattice;

removing silence and filler words from the phone lattice, to yield a revised phone lattice;

normalizing costs in the revised phone lattice such that a cost of a best path is set to zero;

generating a cost-normalized query using factors of interest, wherein an index of words is indexed by the factors of interest;

generating, by performing a first pass of entries in a database, a shortlist of recognized speech possibilities using the revised phone lattice, the index of words, and indices contained in the cost-normalized query;

performing a second pass on the shortlist of recognized speech possibilities using a grammar generated from the entries in the database to obtain a final result; and

providing a response to the speech based on the final result.

10. The computer-readable storage device of claim 9 , wherein the index of words is generated based on a plurality of training phoneme lattices and factors of interest from valid entries in a database, wherein the factors of interest comprise trigrams.

11. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10 , wherein the factors of interest further comprise N-grams based on the valid entries in the database.

Assignments (5)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Nov 14, 2023
From: NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
To: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
Reel/Frame 065578/0676 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jan 26, 2017
From: AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY II, L.P.
To: NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
Reel/Frame 041512/0608 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Nov 2, 2015
From: ALLAUZEN, CYRIL GEORGES LUC; PARTHASARATHY, SARANGARAJAN
To: AT&T CORP.
Reel/Frame 036937/0753 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Nov 2, 2015
From: AT&T CORP.
To: AT&T PROPERTIES, LLC
Reel/Frame 037031/0001 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Nov 2, 2015
From: AT&T PROPERTIES, LLC
To: AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY II, L.P.
Reel/Frame 037031/0074 →
Continuity (3)
Continuation 14560219 · Dec 4, 2014
Continuation 11213458 · Aug 26, 2005
Related Publication 20160042732A1 · Feb 11, 2016