Patent ID: 7940915

Claim:
An apparatus for determining a part-to-elicit, which is to be taken out of spoken dialogue data in which conversation by a customer and an operator is recorded, the apparatus comprising: a spoken dialogue data storage unit for storing the spoken dialogue data between the customer and the operator is recorded; an operation log information storage unit for storing registered operation log information in which time information is attached to information about operations performed by the operator during the conversation with the customer; a speech length calculation unit for calculating, from the spoken dialogue data, speech lengths of speeches by each of the customer and the operator in the spoken dialogue data; a speech-length-characteristic change time point specification unit for estimating a conversation structure based on the lengths of the speeches by the customer and the operator, based on the speech lengths, and specifying a speech-length-characteristic change time point indicating the time when the speaker of the speech changes in the conversation structure; and a part-to-elicit determination unit for extracting, from the operation log information, an information search time point indicating the time when the operator performed an information search processing for particular content, determining the information search time point as the ending time point of a part-to-elicit from the spoken dialogue data, and determining a speech-length-characteristic change time point immediately before the information search time point as the starting time point of the part-to-elicit.