Abstract: A method includes (i) measuring first distances between (a) vectors belonging to a set of vectors that represent an utterance and (b) vectors belonging to a set of vectors that represent a template, the measuring being done in accordance with a first order of the utterance vectors a first order of the template vectors, and (ii) measuring second distances between (a) individual vectors belonging to the set of vectors that represent the utterance and (b) individual vectors belonging to the set of vectors that represent the template, the measuring being done in accordance with a second order of the utterance vectors and a second order of the template vectors, and (iii) in which the first template vector order and the second template vector order are different and/or the first utterance vector order and the second utterance vector order are different.

Abstract: Distances are measured between vectors representing speech and a stored reference template. Frequency distributions of the distance measurements are generated by counting how many times a particular reference template resulted in the lowest local distance. The numbers in the counters indicate regions (successive vectors) in a reference template that are good matches for speech input.

Abstract: A subset of values is used to discriminate voice activity in a signal. The subset of values belongs to a larger set of values representing a segment of a signal, the larger set of values being suitable for speech recognition.