Techniques for automatic speech recognition

A brief insight into some of the algorithms that lie behind current automatic speech recognition system is provided. Early phonetically based approaches were not particularly successful, due mainly to a lack of appreciation of the problems involved. These problems are summarized, and various recognition techniques are reviewed in the contect of the solutions that they provide. It is pointed out that the majority of currently available speech recognition equipments employ a "whole-word' pattern matching approach which, although relatively simple, has proved particularly successful in its ability to recognize speech. The concepts of time-normalizing plays a central role in this type of recognition process and a family of such algorithms is described in detail. The technique of dynamic time warping is not only capable of providing good performance for isolated word recognition, but how it is also extended to the recognition of connected speech (thereby removing one of the most severe limitations of early speech recognition equipment).