Patent ID: 7472060

Claim:
A method for use in an automated dialog system in which a dialog comprising dialog exchanges is conducted between the system and a user, at least ones of the dialog exchanges of the dialog including an input communication from the user, the input communication including one or more communication symbols, the method comprising recognizing at least one of the communication symbols of the input communication of a present dialog exchange to determine the input communication, and determining a probability of conducting a successful dialog with the user, a successful dialog being a dialog exchange between the automated dialog system and the user that results in processing of input communications of the user to a stage consistent with the user's intent, said probability being determined based, at least in part, on understanding data from at least one prior dialog exchange of the dialog, said understanding data being data indicative of a probability that the input communication of said at least one prior dialog exchange was correctly understood, wherein said one or more communication symbols includes at least one of words, phrases, morphemes, and gestures, wherein said understanding data for a particular dialog exchange of the dialog includes at least one confidence score, said confidence score being a measure of a confidence that a particular task associated with said confidence score was a task that the user was requesting the system to perform in said particular dialog exchange, wherein said at least one confidence score is a top-confidence score, said top-confidence score being the highest confidence score among a plurality of confidence scores, each of the plurality of confidence scores being a measure of a confidence that a particular respective task associated with said each confidence score was a task that the user was requesting the system to perform in said particular dialog exchange, and wherein said understanding data for a particular dialog exchange of the dialog includes a confpertime feature, said confpertime feature being said top-confidence score normalized by the duration of the input communication.