Patent ID: 7376559

Claim:
A method for pre-processing speech, comprising the steps of: receiving a speech signal; separating an entire spectrum of said speech signal into a number of predetermined frequency sub-bands; analyzing said speech signal within each of said frequency sub-bands; generating respective band-dependent acoustic feature data for each of said respective frequency sub-bands, the band-dependent acoustic feature data being at least in part representative of said speech signal with respect to a respective frequency sub-band; deriving band-dependent likelihoods for occurrences of speech elements or of sequences thereof within said speech signal based on said band-dependent acoustic feature data; analyzing said speech signal within said entire spectrum; generating full-band acoustic feature data, the full-band acoustic feature data being at least in part representative of said speech signal with respect to said entire spectrum; deriving a full-band likelihood for the occurrences of speech elements or of sequences thereof within said speech signal based on said full-band acoustic feature data; and deriving an overall likelihood for the occurrences of speech elements or of sequences thereof within said speech signal based on said band-dependent likelihoods and said full-band likelihood.