Patent ID: 7415406

Claim:
A speech recognition apparatus comprising: a speech recognizing unit that receives a speech signal; a speech recognition dictionary storing unit that has stored therein a language model for determining candidates corresponding to said speech signal; a conversation database that has stored therein plural pieces of topic specifying information; and a conversation history storing memory that stores a conversation history comprised of a history of conversation subjects, wherein: the speech recognizing unit has: a word collating unit that outputs plural candidates with reference to said speech recognition dictionary storing unit on the basis of the inputted speech signal; and a candidate determining unit that compares the plural candidates outputted from the word collating unit with topic specifying information corresponding to the conversation history with reference to said conversation database and outputs any one candidate as a recognition result on the basis of a result of the comparison, wherein said candidate determining unit compares said plural candidates and topic specifying information corresponding to the conversation history with reference to said conversation database, judges whether there is a candidate, which matches the topic specifying information corresponding to the conversation history, in said plural candidates, and if there is a candidate matching the topic specifying information, outputs the candidate as a recognition result.