Speech recognition employing a permissive recognition criterion for a repeated phrase utterance

摘要

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for speech recognition, the speech to be recognized including one or more words. Recognition is based on an analysis of a first and a second utterance. In accordance with the invention, the first utterance is compared to one or more models of speech to determine a similarity metric for each such comparison. The model of speech which most closely matches the first utterance is determined based on the one or more similarity metrics. The similarity metric corresponding to the most closely matching model of speech is analyzed to determine whether the similarity metric satisfies a first recognition criterion. The second utterance is compared to one or more models of speech associated with the most closely matching model (which may include the most closely matching model) to determine a second utterance similarity metric for each such comparison. The one or more second utterance similarity metrics are analyzed to determine whether the one or more metrics satisfies a second recognition criteria. The second utterance is recognized has the phrase corresponding to the most closely matching model of speech when the first and second recognition criteria are satisfied. The present invention has application to many problems in speech recognition including isolated word recognition and command spotting. An illustrative embodiment of the invention in the context of a cellular telephone is provided. Other embodiments are also discussed.