Patent Document ID: RE31188
Application ID: 06336067

Base Claim:
1. A circuit for recognizing an unkown utterance as one of a set of reference words comprising means responsive to each of a plurality of utterances of a reference word for generating a set of signals representative of the features of said utterance; means responsive to the feature signal sets of each reference word for generating at least one temple signal, each template signal being representative of a group of said reference word feature signal sets; means responsive to the unknown utterance for generating a set of signals representative of the features of said unknown utterance; means jointly responsive to said unknown utterance feature signal set and each reference word template signal for forming a set of signals each representative of the similarity between said unknown utterance feature signal set and said reference word template signal; characterized in that selection means (130) are responsive to the similarlity signals for each reference word to select a plurality of said reference word similarity signals; averaging means (135) are adapted to form a signal corresponding to the average of said selected similarity signals for each reference word; and identifying apparatus (140, 145) is responsive to the average similarity signals for said reference words to identify said unknown utterance as the most similar reference word.

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Claim 2:
2. A circuit for recognizing an unknown utterance as one of a set of reference words according to claim 1 characterized in that the template signal generating means (112) further comprises means (222, 224, 225, 226, 228, 230) for successively partitioning said reference word feature signal sets into clusters of feature signal sets, the feature signal sets of each cluster having a predetermined degree of similarity; and means (600, 230, 216) for identifying a feature signal set in each cluster as the template signal representative of all feature signal sets in said cluster.