Patent ID: 11941365
Assignee: NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 4:
5. A response selecting method for outputting one or a plurality of responses to an input question, which is inputted a question, by using a response selecting apparatus having a recording medium, and a processing circuitry, the response selecting method including:
recording question/answer pairs, which are pairs of a question and an answer, and a learned translation model for obtaining an answer from a question being recorded in the recording medium in advance;
a document search step of, using the input question as input, searching for a question/answer pair by a search method determined in advance from the question/answer pairs recorded in the recording medium, and outputting the searched question/answer pair as a search-result question/answer pair;
a score calculation step of, using the input question and the answer of the search-result question/answer pair as input, obtaining a translation likelihood, which is a numerical value based on a probability of obtaining the answer from the input question, by using the translation model, and calculating a score of each of the search-result question/answer pair with respect to the input question based on the translation likelihood; and
a ranking step of, selecting a predetermined number of the search-result question/answer pair in an order of appropriateness indicated by the score and outputting the answer of the selected search-result question/answer pair as a response; wherein
the translation model is learned in accordance with a degree indicated by an index by using a pair of a question and an answer associated with the index indicating the degree of how much the answer sound like a character, and
the index indicating the degree of how much the answer sounds like the character includes: a first index evaluated by a person other than the character himself/herself, a second index indicating that the answer is responded by the character himself/herself, and a third index indicating that the character himself/herself certified that the respond sounds like the character.