Patent ID: 7062440

Claim:
Speech apparatus comprising: a speech input channel including a speech recogniser; a speech output channel including a text-to-speech converter; a barge-in prediction arrangement arranged to assess an overall quality of speech-form passages being produced by the text-to-speech converter from input text-form utterances whereby to produce barge-in prediction indications in correspondence to speech-form passages assessed as inadequate; and a barge-in control for setting barge-in behaviour parameters for determining how the apparatus handles barge-in by a user during speech output by the apparatus, the barge-in control being arranged to be responsive to said barge-in prediction indications to adjust at least one said barge-in behaviour parameter for the corresponding speech-form passages assessed as inadequate, the barge-in control being arranged to be responsive to the said indications to adjust at least one said barge-in behaviour parameter for periods corresponding to the most likely barge-in points.