Abstract: Systems and methods provide a first sample of audio data and detect speech onset in the first sample of the audio data. Responsive to detecting the speech onset, systems and methods switch from capturing second samples of the audio data at first intervals, to capturing the second samples of the audio data at second intervals. Systems and methods provide contiguous audio data using the second samples of the audio data captured at the first intervals and at least one captured portion of the second samples of the audio data captured at the second intervals.

Abstract: One embodiment provides a method, including: receiving, at an information handling device, audible user input; determining, subsequent to the receiving, an intonation with which the audible user input was provided; assigning, based on the determined intonation, an expressive meaning to the audible user input; and performing, based on the expressive meaning, a corresponding function. Other aspects are described and claimed.

Abstract: A method, computer program product, and computing system for receiving audio encounter information from a microphone array. Speech activity within one or more portions of the audio encounter information may be identified based upon, at least in part, a correlation among the audio encounter information received from the microphone array. Location information for the one or more portions of the audio encounter information may be determined based upon, at least in part, the correlation among the signals received by each microphone of the microphone array. The one or more portions of the audio encounter information may be labeled with the speech activity and the location information.

Abstract: A communication device includes a calculation unit which calculates class probabilities that are probabilities an input speech belongs to a plurality of respective classified classes previously defined as types of speech contents, a plurality of response generation modules provided for respective types of responses each generates a response speech corresponding to the type, a determination unit which selects one of the plurality of response generation modules based on association probabilities and the class probabilities calculated by the calculation unit and determines the response speech generated by the selected response generation module as an output speech to be emitted to the user, the association probabilities being set for each of the plurality of response generation modules, and the association probabilities each indicating a level of association between the response generation module and each of the plurality of classified classes, and an output unit which outputs the output speech.

Abstract: A cooperative conversational voice user interface is provided. The cooperative conversational voice user interface may build upon short-term and long-term shared knowledge to generate one or more explicit and/or implicit hypotheses about an intent of a user utterance. The hypotheses may be ranked based on varying degrees of certainty, and an adaptive response may be generated for the user. Responses may be worded based on the degrees of certainty and to frame an appropriate domain for a subsequent utterance. In one implementation, misrecognitions may be tolerated, and conversational course may be corrected based on subsequent utterances and/or responses.

Abstract: There is provided an information processing device and an information processing method that enable speeding up of a responsivity of a system response to a speech of a user. The information processing device includes a processing unit configured to determine, on the basis of a result of semantic analysis that is to be obtained from an interim result of speech recognition of a speech of a user, presence or absence of a response to the speech of the user. It thereby becomes possible to speed up a responsivity of a system response to the speech of the user. The present technology can be applied to a speech dialogue system, for example.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of executing a virtual agent bot includes receiving, via a computer server, at least one input query from a user, and analyzing the at least one input query to extract at least one input term. The method further comprises determining a semantic skill set of the virtual agent bot among a plurality of different candidate skill sets based at least in part on the at least one input term; and invoking the virtual agent bot to provide a semantic topic response corresponding to the semantic skill set to provide an answer to the at least one input query.

Abstract: A collective emotional engagement detection arrangement is provided for determining emotions of users in group conversations. A computer-implemented method includes determining a first conversation velocity of communications through conversation channels over a first time period for a group discussion between user computers; determining that a conversation velocity of the communications has increased to a second conversation velocity of communications which exceeds a predetermined threshold, and has remained above the predetermined threshold for at least a second time period; determining, aggregated emotions of the users during the second time period; and providing an output to a moderator of the group discussion indicating that the second conversation velocity of the communications has exceeded the predetermined threshold for at least the second time period, and indicating the aggregated emotions of the users during the second time period.

Abstract: Contextual routing and/or management of communications is described. Server(s) of service provider can receive a first communication via a first communication channel. The first communication can be associated with a first service offered by the service provider and with a merchant identifier of a merchant that is an intended recipient of the first communication. The server(s) can generate, based at least partly on context data associated with the first communication, a recommendation for the merchant to respond via (i) a second communication channel that is different than the first communication channel and/or (ii) a second service that is different than the first service. The server(s) can cause the first communication and the recommendation to be presented via a consolidated communication user interface of a computing device of the merchant that presents (i) the first communication and (ii) a second communication between the merchant and a second customer of the merchant.

Abstract: A correction candidate presentation method performed by a computer for a voice input system is disclosed. The method includes: displaying, on a display screen, a plurality of word blocks generated by using morphological analysis from a character string obtained by speech recognition and keys each assigned to a corresponding one of the plurality of word blocks; accepting input of a first key of the keys that are displayed; identifying a first word block corresponding to the first key whose input has been accepted; and presenting, on the display screen, correction candidates of at least one word block among the identified first word block and a second word block including the first word block and a word block that is adjacent to the first word block.

Abstract: Dynamic semantic processing of text in a word processing application with engagement of question-answering system. A user provides a text stream to a computer system via an input source. The input text stream includes a first natural language statement. The system determines that the first natural language statement includes a fact-based component expressed in natural language form. The system identifies an initial span and an alternative span of the first natural language component, based on the determining. The system engages a question-answering (QA) system by providing the initial span and the alternative span of the first natural language component to the QA system, and by receiving, in response to the providing, a set of natural language results from the QA system. The system evaluates the initial span and the alternative span of the first natural language component based on the received natural language results.

Abstract: The disclosure relates to a background noise estimator and a method therein, for supporting sound activity detection in an audio signal segment. The method comprises reducing a current background noise estimate when the audio signal segment is determined to comprise music and the current background noise estimate exceeds a minimum value. This is to be performed when an energy level of an audio signal segment is more than a threshold higher than a long term minimum energy level, lt_min, which is determined over a plurality of preceding audio signal segments, or, when the energy level of the audio signal segment is less than a threshold higher than lt_min, but no pause is detected in the audio signal segment.

Abstract: Embodiments relate to an intelligent computer platform to identify and evaluate candidate passages response data in natural language form. A passage is analyzed by applying input tokens against passage tokens. A structure representing the analyzed passage is populated with of matching input and passage tokens. The input and passage tokens are used to assess the structure. First and second counts of token matching criteria are determined, including a first count of matching token entries and a second count of evaluated token entries. An alignment of the passage to a candidate question is calculated and a ratio of the first and second counts is assessed. Data from the passage are returned with the ratio.

Abstract: A correction candidate presentation method performed by a computer for a voice input system is disclosed. The method includes: displaying, on a display screen, a plurality of word blocks generated by using morphological analysis from a character string obtained by speech recognition and keys each assigned to a corresponding one of the plurality of word blocks; accepting input of a first key of the keys that are displayed; identifying a first word block corresponding to the first key whose input has been accepted; and presenting, on the display screen, correction candidates of at least one word block among the identified first word block and a second word block including the first word block and a word block that is adjacent to the first word block.

Abstract: Provided is an information processing apparatus including a file generation unit that generates a file including speech waveform data and vibration waveform data. The file generation unit cuts out waveform data in a to-be-synthesized band from first speech data, synthesizes waveform data extracted from a synthesizing band of vibration data with the to-be-synthesized band to generate second speech data, and encodes the second speech data to generate the file.

Abstract: In one or more embodiments described herein, device, computer-implemented methods, and/or computer program products that facilitate enhancing test coverage of dialogue models. According to an embodiment, a system can comprise a processor that executes computer executable components stored in memory. The computer executable components can comprise a conversation processing component that receives and processes a first conversation. The computer executable components can further comprise a node marking component that tags a first node of a node map as an accessed node if the first node was accessed during processing of the first conversation. The computer executable components can further comprise a reporting component that generates a report comprising a list of nodes, wherein the list of nodes comprises one or more second nodes that were not accessed during processing of the first conversation.

Abstract: An information processing apparatus outputs answer information corresponding to inquiry information that is input. The information processing apparatus includes a memory and circuitry. The memory is configured to store a plurality of databases each having at least a first field and a second field. The circuitry is configured to: perform morphological analysis on the inquiry information, to divide the inquiry information into morphemes; perform a first matching process based on the morphemes and the first field of each of the plurality of databases, to determine whether to adopt the database as an extraction source from which the answer information is to be extracted; and perform a second matching process based on the morphemes and the first field of the database, which is determined to be adopted as the extraction source, to output, as the answer information, data in the second field corresponding to data in the first field.

Abstract: A semantic extraction method based on a natural language is provided. In a character library based on a single-character granularity, a character of an input natural language is queried, to obtain first semantic vectors representing semantic descriptions of the character. Candidate semantic intentions corresponding to second semantic vectors and weight vectors corresponding to the candidate semantic intentions are obtained, wherein the second semantic vectors are obtained by using a neural network and correspond to different permutations and combinations of the first semantic vectors. A candidate semantic intention is selected as a final semantic intention of the natural language based on a preset condition, and key information is obtained corresponding to the final semantic intention according to a weight vector corresponding to the final semantic intention.

Abstract: A conversation support apparatus 10 includes: an utterance reception unit 11 that receives an utterance in an on-going conversation; an utterance position estimation unit 12 that, for each node in a conversation tree in which at least one of a label and a topic is provided to each node, collates the at least one of the label and the topic provided to the node and the received utterance, and estimates a node that is most related to the received utterance; and a display unit 13 that adds a visual characteristic representation to the estimated node and displays the conversation tree on a screen.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media for summarizing a call. One of the methods includes generating text corresponding to processing audio produced during an interaction between two participants by executing natural language processing logic. The method includes identifying one or more topics by providing the generated text to a machine learning system, the machine learning system trained to identify topics based on text. The method also includes generating a summary of the interaction based on the one or more topics and the text.