Method and apparatus for generating and displaying N-best alternatives in a speech recognition system
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsChris Thrasher, Fileno A. Alleva
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for generating alternatives to words indicative of recognized speech. A reference path of recognized words is generated, based upon input speech data. An operator selection input is received and is indicative of a selected portion of the recognized speech, for which alternatives are to be generated. Boundary conditions for alternatives to be generated are calculated based upon bounds of a reference subpath corresponding to the selected portion of the recognized speech. Alternate subpaths satisfying the boundary conditions are constructed from a hypothesis store which corresponds to the input speech data.
Claims42
A method of generating alternatives to words indicative of recognized speech, recognized based on input speech data, comprising:
- generating a reference path of recognized words based on the input speech data;
- receiving an operator selection input indicative of a selected portion of the recognized speech for which alternatives are to be generated;
- calculating boundary conditions for alternatives based on position bounds of a reference subpath corresponding to the selected portion of the recognized speech;
- and
- constructing from a hypothesis store, corresponding to the input speech data, alternate subpaths satisfying the boundary conditions.
A method of generating alternate speech recognitions for speech data input by an application, comprising:
- receiving the speech data at a speech recognition engine;
- generating a reference speech path and a hypothesis lattice based on the speech data, the hypothesis lattice representing alternate recognition paths corresponding to the speech data, the hypothesis lattice including a plurality of entries, each entry including an instance of a lexical word, a starting point in the speech data of the instance of the lexical word, an ending point in the speech data of the instance of the lexical word, and a score associated with the instance of the lexical word;
- storing the hypothesis lattice with the application;
- receiving a user selection input indicative of a portion of the reference speech path to be corrected;
- in response to the user selection input, accessing the retrieved hypothesis lattice with the speech recognition engine;
- and
- constructing, at the engine, alternate subpaths to replace portions of the reference speech path based on the hypothesis lattice.
A speech recognition system for receiving a speech input and generating recognition data indicative of words recognized in the speech data, and for generating alternates to words in the recognition data, comprising:
- a decoder generating a reference path including likely words in the speech data and a hypothesis lattice indicative of hypotheses generated based on the speech data;
- and
- an alternative generator, coupled to the decoder, configured to receive the reference path and a user selected portion of the reference path to be changed, and to calculate boundary conditions for the selected portion of the reference path to obtain a reference subpath and access the hypothesis lattice to generate alternative subpaths to replace the reference subpath based on the boundary conditions calculated.
A method of generating correction alternatives to misrecognized words in input speech data, comprising:
- generating a reference path of recognized words based on the input speech data;
- receiving an operator selection input indicative of a selected misrecognized portion of the recognized speech for which alternatives are to be generated;
- calculating boundary conditions for alternatives based on position bounds of a reference subpath corresponding to the selected misrecognized portion of the recognized speech;
- and
- constructing from a hypothesis store, corresponding to the input speech data, alternate subpaths satisfying the boundary conditions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.