Patent ID: 6185530
Filing Date: 2001-02-06
Classification: G10L,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for adding words to a vocabulary of a speech recognition engine, the method comprising the steps of:(a) inputting at least one new word;(b) computing an acoustic similarity measure between the at least one new word and each word of at least a portion of existing vocabulary words, wherein the step of computing an acoustic similarity measure comprises the steps of:computing a leaf sequence for the at least one new word;comparing the leaf sequence for the at least one new word to respective leaf sequences associated with the at least a portion of the existing words; andgenerating respective distance measures in response to the comparisons, the respective distance measures indicative of acoustic distances between the compared leaf sequences, wherein the respective distance measures are calculated via a Kuhlback-Liebler distance metric;(c) if at least one of the computed acoustic similarity measures is within a threshold range, identifying the at least one new word as being potentially acoustically confusing with an existing vocabulary word, indicating results associated with the at least one computed acoustic similarity measure and prompting a user to input an alternative word or additional information pertaining to the at least one new word; and(d) if none of the computed acoustic similarity measures are within the threshold range, adding the at least one new word to the vocabulary.