Patent ID: 8145486
Filing Date: 2012-03-27
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
1. An indexing apparatus comprising a processing unit and including: an extracting unit configured to extract in a certain time interval, from among speech signals including utterances of a plurality of speakers, speech features indicating features of the speakers; a first dividing unit configured to divide the speech features into a plurality of first segments each having a certain first time length; a first-acoustic-model creating unit configured to create a first acoustic model for each of the first segments based on the speech features included in the first segments; a similarity calculating unit configured to sequentially group a certain number of temporally successive first segments into a region, and calculate a similarity between the first segments based on first acoustic models of the first segments included in the region; a region extracting unit configured to extract a region having a similarity that is equal to or greater than a predetermined value as a learning region; a second-acoustic-model creating unit configured to create, for the learning region, a second acoustic model based on speech features included in the learning region; a second dividing unit configured to divide the speech features into second segments each having a predetermined second time length; a feature-vector acquiring unit configured to acquire feature vectors specific to the respective second segments, using the second acoustic model of the learning region and speech features of the second segments; a clustering unit configured to group speech features of the second segments corresponding to the feature vectors, based on vector components of the feature vectors; and an indexing unit configured to allocate, based on a result of grouping performed by the clustering unit, relevant portions of the speech signals with speaker information including information for grouping the speakers, wherein at least the extracting unit and the first dividing unit are executed by the processing unit.