Patent ID: 8407051

Claim:
A speech recognizing apparatus comprising: a speech start instructing section for receiving a non-verbal instruction to start speech recognition; a speech input section for receiving uttered speech and for converting it to a speech signal; a speech recognizing section for recognizing the speech on the basis of the speech signal delivered from the speech input section; an utterance start time detecting section for detecting a duration of time starting when the speech start instructing section instructs to start the speech recognition and concluding when a speech signal is first delivered from the speech input section after the instruction to start speech recognition is received; an utterance timing deciding section for deciding utterance timing indicating whether an utterance start is quick or slow by comparing the duration detected by the utterance start time detecting section with a prescribed threshold; a speech recognition score correcting section for correcting a speech recognition score of words recognized by the speech recognizing section in accordance with the utterance timing decided by the utterance timing deciding section; a score cutoff deciding section for deciding whether to provide a recognition result or not in accordance with the speech recognition score corrected by the speech recognition score correcting section; an interaction control section for determining, in accordance with the decision result of the score cutoff deciding section, a content to be shown when exhibiting the recognition result of the speech recognizing section; a system response generating section for generating a system response on the basis of the content to be shown determined by the interaction control section; and an output section for outputting the system response generated by the system response generating section.