Lucent Technologies Inc.

Arun Chandrasekaran Surendran

Qi P Li

Katherine Grace August

Chin-Hui Lee

Michelle McNerney

Qiru Zhou

Chi-Lin Shih

Jialin Zhong

Olivier Siohan

Nadine Blackwood

A method and apparatus for interactive language instruction is provided that displays text files for processing, provide key features and functions for interactive learning, displays facial animation, and provides a workspace for language building functions. The system includes a stored set of language rules as part of the text-to-speech sub-system, as well as another stored set of rules as applied to the process of learning a language. The method implemented by the system includes digitally converting text to audible speech, providing the audible speech to a user or student (with the aid of an animated image in selected circumstances), prompting the student to replicate the audible speech, comparing the student's replication with the audible speech provided by the system, and providing feedback and reinforcement to the student by, for example, selectively recording or playing back the audible speech and the student's replication.

Method and apparatus for interactive language instruction

A speaker verification method and apparatus which advantageously minimizes the constraints on the customer and simplifies the system architecture by using a speaker dependent, rather than a speaker independent, background model, thereby obtaining many of the advantages of using a background model in a speaker verification process without many of the disadvantages thereof. In particular, no training data (e.g. speech) from anyone other than the customer is required, no speaker independent models need to be produced, no a priori knowledge of acoustic rules are required, and, no multi-lingual phone models, dictionaries, or letter-to-sound rules are needed. Nonetheless, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the customer is free to select any password phrase in any language. Specifically, and in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the background model comprises a hidden Markov model having a cruder acoustic resolution than the customer model, which may, for example, be achieved by providing a background model containing fewer states than the customer model.

Background model design for flexible and portable speaker verification systems

Growing community of inventors

Highland Park, NJ, United States of America

Arun Chandrasekaran Surendran