Importance

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Abstract

A method and apparatus for identifying any one of a plurality of words, each word having an audible form represented by a sequence of spoken speech elements, with each speech element having a respective position in the sequence, which involves: receiving spoken speech elements of a word and interpreting each received speech element, wherein each spoken speech element .alpha. may be interpreted as any one of a plurality of different speech elements .beta., one of the speech elements .beta. being the same as speech element .alpha.; assigning to each of the possible speech elements a respective plurality of probabilities, P.sub..alpha..beta., that the speech element will be interpreted as a speech element .beta. when a speech element .alpha. has been spoken; storing data representing each word, the data for each word including identification of each speech element in the word and identification of the respective position of each speech element in the sequence of speech elements representing the word; receiving a sequence of speech elements spoken by a person and representing one of the stored words, and interpreting each speech element of the spoken word and the position of each speech element in the sequence of spoken speech elements; and comparing the interpreted speech elements with stored data representing each word of the plurality of words and performing a computation, using the probability, P.sub..alpha..beta., associated with each interpreted speech element .beta. to identify the word whose speech elements correspond most closely to interpreted speech elements.

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First Claim