Correcting phoneme recognition errors in learning word pronunciation through speech interaction

This paper presents a method called Interactive Phoneme Update (IPU) that enables users to teach systems the pronunciation (phoneme sequences) of words in the course of speech interaction. Using the method, users can correct mis-recognized phoneme sequences by repeatedly making correction utterances according to the system responses. The originalities of this method are: (1) word-segment-based correction that allows users to use word segments for locating mis-recognized phonemes based on open-begin-end dynamic programming matching and generalized posterior probability, (2) history-based correction that utilizes the information of phoneme sequences that were recognized and corrected previously in the course of interactive learning of each word. Experimental results show that the proposed IPU method reduces the error rate by a factor of three over a previously proposed maximum-likelihood-based method.

► We propose a method for learning the phoneme sequences of out-of-vocabulary words. ► Users correct mis-recognized phoneme sequences through speech interaction. ► Word segments can be used for locating the mis-recognized phonemes. ► Historical information during the interaction is used to make the learning efficient. ► The method outperforms a previously proposed baseline method.