Consistent user experience in information retrieval systems

A computer implemented information retrieval system for searching a corpus, the system comprising:

• a computer;
• a scoring module configured to, for each of one or more searches of at least a subset of the corpus, generate a confidence score for each of one or more putative occurrences of a search query in the at least a subset of the corpus;
• a threshold module configured to adjust a threshold to maintain a consistent user experience across the one or more searches according to a consistency criterion, wherein the threshold is adjusted according to at least one of a duration of the at least a subset of the corpus or an audio quality of the at least a subset of the corpus;
• and
• a display module configured to display putative occurrences of the search query having a confidence score greater than the threshold;
• wherein
• the retrieval system is further configured to modify the search algorithm to optimize the consistency criterion, and
• the consistency criterion is selected from the group consisting of
• a constant computation duration for each of the plurality of searches, and
• a constant amount of memory used for each of the one or more searches.

A computer implemented information retrieval system for searching a corpus, the system comprising:

• a computer;
• a scoring module configured to, for each of one or more searches of at least a subset of the corpus, generate a confidence score for each of one or more putative occurrences of a search query in the at least a subset of the corpus;
• a threshold module configured to adjust a threshold to maintain a consistent user experience across the one or more searches according to a consistency criterion, wherein the threshold is adjusted according to the search query;
• and
• a display module configured to display putative occurrences of the search query having a confidence score greater than the threshold;
• wherein the consistency criterion is selected from the group consisting of
• a constant number of false alarms in the putative occurrences of the search query for each of the one or more searches,
• a constant false alarm rate in the putative occurrences of the search query for each of the one or more searches,
• a constant number of true occurrences of the search query for each of the one or more searches,
• a constant precision value in the putative occurrences of the search query for each of the one or more searches,
• a constant number of missed occurrences of the search query for each of the one or more searches, and
• a constant recall value in the putative occurrences of the search query for each of the one or more searches.

A computer implemented information retrieval system for searching a corpus, the system comprising:

• a computer;
• a scoring module configured to, for each of one or more searches of at least a subset of the corpus, generate a confidence score for each of one or more putative occurrences of a search query in the at least a subset of the corpus;
• a threshold module configured to adjust a threshold to maintain a consistent user experience across the one or more searches according to a consistency criterion, wherein the threshold is adjusted according to the search query;
• and
• a display module configured to display putative occurrences of the search query having a confidence score greater than the threshold;
• wherein
• the retrieval system is further configured to modify the search algorithm to optimize the consistency criterion, and
• the consistency criterion is selected from the group consisting of
• a constant computation duration for each of the plurality of searches, and
• a constant amount of memory used for each of the one or more searches.