Method and apparatus for improving the utility of speech recognition

A method of automating telephone directory services for a telephone user having a display telephone, comprising the steps of:

• a) prompting the user for names used as indicia to locate an entity in the directory;
• b) accepting from the user a spoken name for each index;
• c) passing each spoken name to a speech recognition algorithm and accepting from the speech recognition algorithm at least one representation of the spoken name;
• d) displaying as text on the display telephone the at least one representation of the spoken name to permit the user to select a correct representation of the spoken name;
• and
• e) assembling a query to the directory after a correct representation of each index has been selected in order to retrieve a record for the entity from the directory.

A method of improving the utility of speech recognition of words spoken by a speaker, comprising:

• a) capturing an electronic signal, using an Analog Display Services Interface (ADSI) telephone, representative of a word spoken by the speaker;
• b) sending the electronic signal through the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to a speech recognition algorithm;
• c) receiving via the PSTN from the speech recognition algorithm at least one representation of the word;
• d) displaying on a display surface of the ADSI telephone the at least one representation of the word for the speaker, to permit the to select a correct representation of the word from among the at least one representation;
• and
• e) repeating steps a)-c) in an event that none of the representations of the word are verified as correct, or enabling the speaker to communicate the at least one word using a key pad of the ADSI telephone.

A method of automatically information retrieval from a database for a telephone user having an Analog Display Service Interface (ADSI) telephone, comprising the steps of:

• a) prompting the user for spoken words used as indicia to locate information of interest in the database;
• b) accepting at least one of the spoken words from the user;
• c) passing an electronic representation of each spoken word to a speech recognition algorithm and accepting from the speech recognition algorithm at least one representation of the spoken word;
• d) displaying as text on the ADSI telephone the at least one representation of the spoken word to permit the user to select a correct representation of the spoken word;
• and
• e) assembling a query to the database after a correct representation of each spoken word has been selected by the user, in order to retrieve the information from the database.