Method and apparatus for processing the output of a speech recognition engine
data processing apparatus is disclosed for receiving recognition data from a speech recognition engine and its corresponding dictated audio data where the recognition data includes recognized words or characters. A display displays the recognized words or characters and the recognized words or characters restored as a file together with the corresponding audio data. The recognized words or characters can be processed and link data is formed to link the position of the words or characters in the file and the position of the corresponding audio component in the audio data.
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The present invention generally relates to the field of data processing and in particular the field of processing the output of a speech recognition engine.
BACKGROUND ARTThe use of speech recognition as an alternative method of inputting data to a computer is becoming more prevalent as speech recognition algorithms become ever more sophisticated and the processing capabilities of modern computers increases. Speech recognition systems are particularly attractive for people wishing to use computers who do not have keyboard skills.
There are several speech recognition systems currently on the market which can operate on a desktop computer. One such system is called DragonDictate (Trade Mark). This system allows a user to input both speech data and speech commands. The system can interface with many different applications to allow the recognised text output to be directly input into the application, e.g. a word processor. This system, however, suffers from the disadvantage that there is no audio recording of the dictation stored which can be replayed to aid the correction of the recognised text.
Another system which is currently on the market is IBM VoiceType version 1.1 (Trade Mark). In this system the recognised text from the speech recognition engine is input directly into a proprietary text processor and audio data is stored. This system, however, does not allow the recognised text to be directly input into any other application. The dictated text can only be input directly into the proprietary text processor provided whereupon at the end of dictation the text can be cut and pasted into other applications. Corrections to the dictated text in order to update the speech recogniser models can only be carried out within the text processor window. Text for recognition correction can be selected and the audio component corresponding to the text is played back to assist in the correction process. When all of the corrections have been completed, the text can either be saved or cut ready for pasting into another application. Either of these operations can cause the corrections made to be used to update the speech recogniser: the user has limited control over when the updates are made.
Not only is this system disadvantaged in not allowing direct dictation into applications, the system also does not allow the audio data to be stored in association with the text when the document is saved or when the text is cut and pasted into another application. Even a simple text processing operation, e.g. an insertion operation within a body of text, will prevent the playback of the audio component for that body of text including the change.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIt is an object of the present invention to provide an interface between the output of a speech recognition engine and an application capable of processing the output which operates in a data processing apparatus to link the relationship between the output data and the audio data to allow the audio data to be played back for any output data which has been dictated even if the data as a whole has been processed in such a way as to move, reorder, delete, insert or format the data.
This object of the present invention can be achieved by a data processing apparatus comprising input means for receiving recognition data and corresponding audio data from a speech recognition engine, the recognition data including a string of recognised data characters and audio identifiers identifying audio components corresponding to a character component of the recognised characters; processing means for receiving and processing the input recognised characters to replace, insert, and/or move characters in the recognised characters and/or to position the recognised characters; link means for forming link data linking the audio and identifiers to the characters component positions in the character string even after processing; display means for displaying the characters being processed by the processing means; user operable selection means for selecting characters in the displayed characters for audio playback, where the link data identifies any selected audio components, if present, which are linked to the selected characters; and audio playback means for playing back the selected audio components in the order of the character component positions in the character string.
Thus, in accordance with this aspect of the present invention, positional changes of characters in the character string due to processing operations are monitored and the links which identify the corresponding audio component are updated accordingly. In this way, the corresponding audio component for any dictated character in the character string can be immediately identified even after processing. This allows for the audio component associated with any character to be played back by a selection operation by a user. This feature greatly enhances the ability to correct incorrectly recognised characters since a user will be able to hear what was dictated in order to decide what was actually said rather than what the speech recogniser recognised. This feature of being able to play back audio components corresponding to the characters is maintained even when dictated characters are inserted into previously dictated characters.
In the present invention the character data output from the speech recognition engine can comprise text or symbols in any language, numerals or any unicode. The characters can comprise words forming text or any unicode characters and the system can be configured to recognise dictated numbers and input the corresponding numeric characters to the application instead of the word descriptions.
The processing means of the present invention can comprise any application running on a processor which enables character data from a speech recognition engine to be entered and manipulated, e.g. a word processor, presentation applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint (Trade Mark) spreadsheets such as Excel (Trade Mark), email applications and CAD applications. In this aspect of the present invention the dictated character positions in the document, drawing or product of the application is linked to the corresponding audio component by link data.
In one aspect of the present invention the link data and audio data can all be stored. In this way the audio data is maintained for playback at a later time when, for instance, it may be wished to carry out corrections to correct speech recognition errors. The storage of the character data, link data and the audio data allows for corrections to be postponed or even delegated to another person on another machine.
Corrections to the incorrectly recognised character data can be made by correcting the character string which causes the playback of the audio component. The characters can then be corrected and the corrected characters and the audio identifier for the audio component corresponding to the corrected characters are passed to the speech recognition engine for updating user models used in the recognition process.
Where the output of the speech recognition engine includes a list of alternative characters together with an indicator which indicates the likelihood that the word is correct, when a word is selected for correction, a choice list can be displayed which comprises the alternative words listed alphabetically for ease of use. Corrections can then be carried out either by selecting one of the alternative characters or entering a new character.
In one embodiment, in order to maintain the links between the character components and the corresponding audio components, a list of character locations in the character string and positions in the corresponding audio components is kept. Where the character string is formed of a plurality of separate dictated passages, the audio data is separately stored and the list identifies in which of the stored audio passages and at which position the audio component lies in the audio passage.
In addition to the updating of the speech recognition model due to incorrectly recognised words, a passage of characters, or all of the characters, can be selected for updating the contextual model used by the speech recognition engine. Thus, in this embodiment of the invention the operator has control over when the contextual model is to be updated based on the corrections made to the characters.
It is an object of another aspect of the present invention to enable audio messages to be recorded and stored in association with a file containing character data output from a speech recognition engine to allow instructions or a reminder to be recorded.
In accordance with this object of the present invention there is provided data processing apparatus comprising means for receiving recognition data from a speech recognition engine and corresponding audio data, the recognition data including recognised characters; display means for displaying the recognised characters; storage means for storing the recognised characters as a file; means for selectively disabling the display and storage of recognised characters or recognition carried out by the speech recognition engine for a period of time; and means for storing the audio data for a period of time in the storage means as an audio message associated with the file.
It is an object of another aspect of the present invention to provide for the automatic detection of possibly incorrectly recognised characters in the character data output from the speech recognition engine.
In accordance with this aspect of the present invention, there is provided data correction apparatus comprising means for receiving recognition data from a speech recognition engine, said recognition data including recognised characters representing the most likely characters, and a likelihood indicator for each character indicating the likelihood that the character is correct; display means for displaying the recognised character; automatic error detection means for detecting possible errors in recognition of characters in the recognised characters by scanning the likelihood indicators for the recognised characters and detecting if the likelihood indicator for a character is below the likelihood threshold, whereby said display means highlights at least the first, if any, character having a likelihood indicator below the likelihood threshold; user operable selection means for selecting a character to replace an incorrectly recognised character highlighted in the recognised characters; and correction means for replacing the incorrectly recognised character and the selected character to correct the recognised characters.
The likelihood threshold can be selectively set by a user to a suitable level to reduce the number of characters which are falsely identified as incorrectly recognised whilst increasing the chances of correctly identifying incorrectly recognised characters. The provision of automatic detection of possible recognition errors can significantly decrease the time taken for correcting character data.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
A specific embodiment will now be described with application to word processing of text output of a speech recognition engine.
Referring to
The system is provided with a microphone 5, a loudspeaker 6 and an interface device 7. During dictation the audio signal from the microphone 5 is input into the interface device 7 which includes an analog to digital converter and a digital signal processor to digitise and condition the signal for input into the computer 1. During playback of the recorded audio signal, the audio signal is output from the computer 1 to the interface device 7 in digital form and is converted to an analog signal by a digital to analog converter within the interface device 7. The analog signal is then output from the interface device 7 to play back the audio recording.
In the specific embodiment of the present invention the interface device 7 is provided with the IBM VoiceType system. Also, the speech recognition engine used in the specific example is the IBM VoiceType speech recognition engine. The present invention is not, however, limited to any specific speech recognition engine and can also be used with any conventional hardware for recording and playing back sound in a personal computer, e.g. in an IBM compatible machine the sixteen bit sound blaster compatible standard can be used. The present invention can be used with either continuous or discrete speech recognition engines.
Referring now to
The system is also provided with non-volatile storage in the form of disk storage 15. Within the disk storage 15 two directories are provided. A temporary directory used by the speech recognition engine 11 for the storage of run time files which contain the speech recognition output data. A user's directory is also provided for the storage of document files by the text processor application 13 and associated link data formed by the speech recognition interface 12.
An audio input device 16 inputs the dictated audio signal to an analog to digital converter 17. Although in
When the speech recognition interface application 12 interacts with the text processor application 13 following the selection of text for audio playback by the user using the pointing device 3, audio data which is stored in the temporary directory in the disc storage 15 is accessed and output over the bus 9 via the input/output device 19 to a digital to analog converter 27 to generate an analog audio signal to drive an audio output device 28 for playback of the audio signal selected by the user.
In the specific embodiment the audio data is stored in one or more files in the temporary directory of the disk storage 15 since the storage audio data requires a great deal of storage capacity and it is impractical to hold audio data of any length in the volatile memory 20.
In the specific embodiment the operating system operating by the processor 10 is Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95 or NT. The text processor application 13 can be any word processor such as Microsoft Word (Trade Mark), Wordperfect (Trade Mark) or Lotus Word Pro (Trade Mark). The speech recognition engine application 11 is the IBM VoiceType.
When the speech recognition engine application 11 is activated and receives audio data via the interface device 7, the speech recognition output data 24 is temporarily held in the volatile memory 20. The output data is then passed to files which are opened in the temporary directory of the disk storage 15. The audio data for each period of dictation is stored in a single file.
Also in temporary directory on the disc storage 15, two files are stored by the speech recognition engine application 11 which includes the information illustrated in tabular form in
The speech recognition interface application 12 receives the output of the speech recognition engine application 11 and forms link data 25 in the volatile memory 20.
Once the programs are loaded, a user can select whether to read an existing document in step S2. If no existing document is to be read text can be entered using the dictation process step S3 which will be described in more detail hereinafter. When a passage of dictated text is complete, the dictation process is finished and in step S4 the user can decide whether to insert further dictated text. If further dictated text is to be inserted, the process returns to step S3. If no further dictated text is to be inserted then the dictation process is finished.
If in step S2 after the programs have been loaded a user requests that an existing document be read, in step S5 the document to be read is selected and in step S6 it is determined whether the document selected has audio data associated with it. If there is no audio data associated with it, i.e. it is a conventional word processor document, in step S7 the document is read and the process moves to step S4 which is a point at which the document has been loaded and the user can insert dictated text if desired.
If in step S6 it is determined that the document does have audio data associated with it, the user is given the option to read the audio data in step S8. If the user declines to read the audio data then only the document is read in step S7 and the document will be treated within the word processor as a conventional word processor document. If in step S8 the user selects to read the audio data, in step S9 the document is read together with the associated link data from the user's directory in the disk storage 15 and the speech recogniser run time created files are copied from the user's directory to the temporary directory in the disk storage 15. The document is thus open in the word processor and in step S4 the user can insert dictated text if desired.
If no more dictated text is to be inserted in step S4, in step S10 the user can decide whether to correct recognition errors in the recognised text. If in step S10 it is decided by the user that they are to correct errors then the process moves to step S11 to correct the errors as will be described hereafter.
Once the recognition errors have been corrected by the user or if the recognition error is not to be corrected by the user, the process moves to step S12 wherein the user can decide whether to update the user's contextual model. This is a second form of correction for the speech recognition process. The user model 21 comprises an acoustic model and a contextual model. The recognition errors corrected in step S1 will correct the acoustic model, i.e. the recognition errors. Once all of the recognition errors have been corrected, the contextual model can be updated in step S13 by selecting the text to be used for the update and sending the number of corrected words together with a list of the corrected words to the speech recognition engine for updating the contextual model.
In step S14 the user can then decide whether or not to word process the document in the conventional manner. If a document is to be word processed, the word processing operation in step S15 is carried out as will be described in more detail hereinafter. This word processing operation can be carried out at any time after or before the dictation process. The document being formed in the word processor can thus comprise a mixture of conventionally entered text, i.e. via the keyboard or via the insertion of text from elsewhere, and directly dictated text.
When the user has finished dictating, inserting and editing the text, in step S16 the user has the option of whether or not to save the document. If the document is to be saved, in step S17 the user is given the option of saving the document without the audio data as a conventional word processor document in step S18, or saving the document together with the link data and audio data in step S19. In step S19, in order to save the link data and audio data, the document and link data, by default, is saved in the user's directory and a copy of the speech recogniser run time created files is made in the user's directory.
Once the document has been saved, the user has the option to exit the word processor in step S20. If the word processor is exited in step S20 the process terminates in step S21, otherwise the user has the option of whether or not to read an existing document in step S2.
Referring now to
In step S30 the dictation is started and in step S31 the speech recognition engine application 11 outputs speech recognition data 24 and stores the data in run time files in a temporary directory of the disk storage 15. Also, the audio data is stored in parallel as a run time file in the temporary directory in step S32. The speech recognition interface application 12 detects whether the most likely words output from the speech recognition engine application 11 are firm or infirm, i.e. whether the speech recognition engine application 11 has finished recognising that word or not in step S33. If the speech recognition engine application 11 has not finished recognising that word, a word is still output as the most likely, but this could change, e.g. when contextual information is taken into consideration. In step S34, the speech recognition interface application 12 forms links between positions of firm words and corresponding audio data components thus forming the link data 25. In step S35 the speech recognition interface application 12 outputs the words to the word processor application 13 and the text is displayed on the screen with the infirm words being displayed in reverse video format. In step S36 the process determines whether dictation is finished and if has not it returns to step S30. If dictation has finished, in step S37 it is determined whether the dictated text is inserted into previously dictated text and, if so, the link data is updated to take into consideration the change in character positions of the previously dictated words. The dictation process is then terminated in step S38.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
Thus in the process described with reference to FIGS. 5 to 8, the user is able to harness the output of the speech recognition engine to maintain links between the words in the text and the corresponding audio components in the audio data even if the words are moved or are dispersed with non dictated text or text which has been dictated at some other time. Link data effectively acts as a pointer between the position of the text in the document and the position of the corresponding audio component in the audio data. In this way the dictated text can be ordered in any way and mixed with non dictated text without losing the ability to play back the audio components when selected by a user.
Also, since not only audio data but also the link data is stored in non-volatile storage such as the disk storage 15, the user is able to reopen a document and play back the corresponding audio data. This enables a user to dictate a document and store it without correction thereby allowing correction at a later date, i.e. delaying the correction. When the document link data and audio data is read, the system returns to a state as if the text had just been dictated. The text can be corrected and the corrections can be fed back to the speech recognition engine to update the user model 21.
Referring now to
If there are no audio messages associated with a document the process proceeds to step S9 where the document and link data is read and the speech recognition run time created files are copied from the user's directory to the temporary directory and the system proceeds as described with regard to
In
This aspect of the present invention illustrated in
In the specific example the audio message merely comprises a normal audio data file which has the speech recognition data of
As can be seen with regard to
This aspect of the present invention can be used without the features of correcting the user model and can in its simplest form comprise a method of recording and digitising audio messages and storing the audio messages with a document which could simply be created in a conventional manner without involving speech recognition. The audio message allows for instructions or reminding information to be attached to a document in audio form.
Another aspect of the present invention will now be described with reference to FIGS. 11 to 15. In this aspect of the present invention the correction of the incorrectly recognised words in a dictated passage of text can be carried out on a machine which is separate to the machine containing the speech recognition engine 11 and user model 21. In
Although in
The editor work station 103 is also provided with a network card 200 to interface the editor work station 103 with the network 101 to allow for the document, link data and speech recognition run time created files to be read from a correspondence path. Of course, although not illustrated in
Referring now to
Once the identified tag is determined in step S125 the alternative words are read from the speech recognition run time created files in the correspondence path in step S129 and in step S130 a choice list is built and displayed. The choice list comprises the alternative words listed alphabetically for ease of use. In step S131 the editor can select an alternative word from the choice list, input a new word, default back to the original word, or cancel if the original word is considered to be correct or the editor incorrectly selected the word. If an editor cancels the operation in step S131a the process proceeds to step S135 to determine whether more corrections are required. If the user does not cancel the operation, in step S132 the displayed document is updated and in step S133 the corrected word and identifier flag is stored in a word correction file in the user path. In step S134 the link data is updated e.g. if the correct word is of different length to the replaced word, the character number identifying the position of the first character of each of the proceeding words will be changed and thus the link data for all of the following words must be changed. In step S135, if the user makes no more corrections, the process ends at step S136 otherwise the user can select another word in step S120.
When the identifer tag is determined for the word in step S145 in step S149 the alternative words from the speech recognition run time created files can be read in the correspondence path and in step S150 a choice list can be built and displayed. The choice list comprises a list of the alternative words in alphabetical order. In step S151 the editor can select an alternative word from the choice list, input a new word, default back to the original word, or cancel if it is considered that the original word was correct. If the editor cancels the operation in step S151 the process proceeds to step S155 to determine whether the end of the document or selected text has been reached. If the editor does not cancel the operation, in step S152 the displayed document is updated and in step S153 the corrected word and identifer flag are stored in a word correction file in the user path. In step S154 the link data 25 is updated e.g. if the correct word has a different length to the original word the position of the following words will change and thus the link data needs to be updated. In step S155 it is determined whether it is the end of the document, or selected text, and if so the process terminates in step S156.
Referring now to
Although in step S162 the author can select each associated word and contextual correction file for updating, the author may also be given the opportunity to elect for the updating to be carried out for all of the correction files present in the user path.
This aspect of the present invention illustrated in FIGS. 11 to 15 allows an author to dictate documents, save them and delegate correction to an editor by a separate machine. The corrections made by the editor are then fed back to update the author's user model to increase the accuracy of the speech recognition thereafter. However, since the author's user model is not copied, there is no danger of there being more than one copy of the user model whereby one of the copies could be out of date. Also, since the editor does not have access to the author's user model, the corrections being carried out by the editor does not prevent the author from continuing to use the speech recognition engine application which requires access to the user model. By delegating the correction to the editor whereby updates are generated in files, dictation by the author and correction by the editor can be carried out in parallel.
The delegated correction feature is enhanced by the provision of the audio note capability allowing an author to dictate instructions to the editor to be attached to the document to be edited. The audio message capability can not only be used in conjunction with the delegated correction facility, but can also be used on its own simply to provide audio messages with a document.
The delegated correction system also provides a cost reduction for users since the editor need not be supplied with the speech recognition software and system components. The editor work station 103 can simply comprise a standard multimedia PC. It is of course possible to provide a plurality of such editor work stations in the network to serve any number of author work stations.
The delegated correction system can also operate without a network by physically moving files between the author and editor work stations on computer readable storage media such as floppy disks.
Although in the embodiments described hereinabove word processing is described as occurring after dictation, word processing of the document can take place at any time.
Further, although in the embodiments the recording and playing of audio messages is described as occurring at specific points in the process they can be recorded or played at any time.
What has been described hereinabove are specific embodiments and it would be clear to a skilled person in the art that modifications are possible and the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments.
Claims
1. Data processing apparatus comprising:
- input means for receiving recognition data from a speech recognition engine and audio data, said recognition data including a string of recognised characters and audio identifiers identifying audio components corresponding to a character component of the recognised characters;
- storage means for storing said audio data received from said input means;
- processing means for receiving and processing the input recognised characters to at least one of replace, insert, move and position the recognised characters to form a processed character string;
- link means for forming link data linking the audio identifiers to the character component positions in the character string and for updating said link data after processing to maintain the link between the audio identifiers and the character component positions in the processed character string;
- display means for displaying the characters received and processed by said processing means;
- user operable selection means for selecting characters in the displayed characters for audio playback, where said link data identifies any selected audio components, if present, which are linked to the selected characters; and
- audio playback means for playing back the selected audio components in the order of the character component positions in the character string or the processed character string.
2-78. (canceled)
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 28, 2005
Publication Date: Jun 15, 2006
Applicant:
Inventors: John Mitchell (Devon), Alan Heard (Devon), Steven Corbett (Surrey), Nicholas Daniel (Devon)
Application Number: 11/169,165
International Classification: G10L 19/00 (20060101);