Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable storage media for unit selection synthesis. The method causes a computing device to add a supplemental phoneset to a speech synthesizer front end having an existing phoneset, modify a unit preselection process based on the supplemental phoneset, preselect units from the supplemental phoneset and the existing phoneset based on the modified unit preselection process, and generate speech based on the preselected units. The supplemental phoneset can be a variation of the existing phoneset, can include a word boundary feature, can include a cluster feature where initial consonant clusters and some word boundaries are marked with diacritics, can include a function word feature which marks units as originating from a function word or a content word, and/or can include a pre-vocalic or post-vocalic feature. The speech synthesizer front end can incorporates the supplemental phoneset as an extra feature.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable storage media for recognizing speech by adapting automatic speech recognition pronunciation by acoustic model restructuring. The method identifies an acoustic model and a matching pronouncing dictionary trained on typical native speech in a target dialect. The method collects speech from a new speaker resulting in collected speech and transcribes the collected speech to generate a lattice of plausible phonemes. Then the method creates a custom speech model for representing each phoneme used in the pronouncing dictionary by a weighted sum of acoustic models for all the plausible phonemes, wherein the pronouncing dictionary does not change, but the model of the acoustic space for each phoneme in the dictionary becomes a weighted sum of the acoustic models of phonemes of the typical native speech. Finally the method includes recognizing via a processor additional speech from the target speaker using the custom speech model.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, computer-implemented methods, and tangible computer-readable storage media for speaker recognition personalization. The method recognizes speech received from a speaker interacting with a speech interface using a set of allocated resources, the set of allocated resources including bandwidth, processor time, memory, and storage. The method records metrics associated with the recognized speech, and after recording the metrics, modifies at least one of the allocated resources in the set of allocated resources commensurate with the recorded metrics. The method recognizes additional speech from the speaker using the modified set of allocated resources. Metrics can include a speech recognition confidence score, processing speed, dialog behavior, requests for repeats, negative responses to confirmations, and task completions.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, computer-implemented methods, and tangible computer-readable media for generating a pronunciation model. The method includes identifying a generic model of speech composed of phonemes, identifying a family of interchangeable phonemic alternatives for a phoneme in the generic model of speech, labeling the family of interchangeable phonemic alternatives as referring to the same phoneme, and generating a pronunciation model which substitutes each family for each respective phoneme. In one aspect, the generic model of speech is a vocal tract length normalized acoustic model. Interchangeable phonemic alternatives can represent a same phoneme for different dialectal classes. An interchangeable phonemic alternative can include a string of phonemes.

Abstract: Systems and methods for providing synthesized speech in a manner that takes into account the environment where the speech is presented. A method embodiment includes, based on a listening environment and at least one other parameter associated with at least one other parameter, selecting an approach from the plurality of approaches for presenting synthesized speech in a listening environment, presenting synthesized speech according to the selected approach and based on natural language input received from a user indicating that an inability to understand the presented synthesized speech, selecting a second approach from the plurality of approaches and presenting subsequent synthesized speech using the second approach.

Abstract: Systems and methods for providing synthesized speech in a manner that takes into account the environment where the speech is presented. A method embodiment includes, based on a listening environment and at least one other parameter associated with at least one other parameter, selecting an approach from the plurality of approaches for presenting synthesized speech in a listening environment, presenting synthesized speech according to the selected approach and based on natural language input received from a user indicating that an inability to understand the presented synthesized speech, selecting a second approach from the plurality of approaches and presenting subsequent synthesized speech using the second approach.

Abstract: Disclosed are systems, methods and computer readable media for training acoustic models for an automatic speech recognition systems (ASR) system. The method includes receiving a speech signal, defining at least one syllable boundary position in the received speech signal, based on the at least one syllable boundary position, generating for each consonant in a consonant phoneme inventory a pre-vocalic position label and a post-vocalic position label to expand the consonant phoneme inventory, reformulating a lexicon to reflect an expanded consonant phoneme inventory, and training a language model for an automated speech recognition (ASR) system based on the reformulated lexicon.

Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for synthesizing speech based on a selected speech act. A method includes modifying synthesized speech of a spoken dialogue system, by (1) receiving a user utterance, (2) analyzing the user utterance to determine an appropriate speech act, and (3) generating a response of a type associated with the appropriate speech act, wherein in linguistic variables in the response are selected, based on the appropriate speech act.

Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods for recognizing speech in a spoken dialogue system.

Abstract: A system, method and computer-readable media are disclosed for improving speech synthesis. A text-to-speech (TTS) voice database for use in a TTS system is generated by a method comprising labeling a voice database phonemically and applying a pre-/post-vocalic distinction to the phonemic labels to generate a TTS voice database. When a system synthesizes speech using speech units from the TTS voice database, the database provides phonemes for selection using the pre-/post-vocalic distinctions which improve unit selection to render the synthetic speech more natural.

Abstract: Systems and methods for providing synthesized speech in a manner that may take into account the environment where the speech is presented. In certain cases, the manner in which speech is presented can take into consideration ambient noise and/or can seek to optimize speech audibility.

Abstract: A text-to-speech synthesizer employs database that includes units. For each unit there is a collection of unit selection parameters and a plurality of frames. Each frame has a set of model parameters derived from a base speech frame, and a speech frame synthesized from the frame's model parameters. A text to be synthesized is converted to a sequence of desired unit features sets, and for each such set the database is perused to retrieve a best-matching unit. An assessment is made whether modifications to the frames are needed, because of discontinuities in the model parameters at unit boundaries, or because of differences between the desired and selected unit features. When modifications are necessary, the model parameters of frames that need to be altered are modified, and new frames are synthesized from the modified model parameters and concatenated to the output. Otherwise, the speech frames previously stored in the database are retrieved and concatenated to the output.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for performing recorded word concatenation to create a natural sounding sequence of words, numbers, phrases, sounds, etc. for example. The method and system may include a tonal pattern identification unit that identifies tonal patterns, such as pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones, for utterances in a particular domain, such as telephone numbers, credit card numbers, the spelling of words, etc.; a script designer that designs a script for recording a string of words, numbers, sounds etc., based on an appropriate rhythm and pitch range in order to obtain natural prosody for utterances in the particular domain and with minimum coarticulation between concatenative units; a script recorder that records a speaker's utterances of the domain strings; a recording editor that edits the recorded strings by marking the beginning and end of each word, number etc.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for performing recorded word concatenation to create a natural sounding sequence of words, numbers, phrases, sounds, etc. for example. The method and system may include a tonal pattern identification unit that identifies tonal patterns, such as pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones, for utterances in a particular domain, such as telephone numbers, credit card numbers, the spelling of words, etc.; a script designer that designs a script for recording a string of words, numbers, sounds etc., based on an appropriate rhythm and pitch range in order to obtain natural prosody for utterances in the particular domain and with minimum coarticulation between concatenative units; a script recorder that records a speaker's utterances of the domain strings; a recording editor that edits the recorded strings by marking the beginning and end of each word, number etc.