Methods and apparatus for automating telephone directory assistance functions

Abstract From the Canadian patent

In methods and, apparatus for at least partially automating, a telephone directory assistance function, directory assistance callers are prompted to speak, locality or called entity names associated with, desired directory listings. A speech recognition algorithm is applied to, speech signals received in response to prompting to, determine spoken locality or called entity names. Desired telephone numbers are released to callers, and, released telephone numbers are used to confirm or, correct at least some of the recognized locality or, called entity names. Speech signal representations, labelled with the confirmed or corrected names are used, as labelled speech tokens to refine prior …