1 research outputs found
An evaluation of automatic speech recognition in the Spanish version of windows 7: effects of language variety, speaking style and gender
This study consists in an evaluation of the Spanish version of the automatic
speech recognizer embedded in what is currently one of the most widespread operating
systems: Microsoft’s Windows 7. Emphasis is placed upon the effects of gender,
language variety and speaking style on system performance. Two groups of subjects
were included in the tests: one of them was composed of 20 speakers of a Peninsular
variety (Spanish as spoken in Catalonia) and the second one, of 20 speakers of a Latin
American variety (Spanish as spoken in Buenos Aires), 10 female and 10 male
speakers within each group. The test set consisted of three different tasks aimed at
evaluating command recognition as well as automatic dictation. These tasks were
carried out in one-to-one meetings with each of the selected subjects.
Results revealed higher error rates for the group of Latin American speakers in
comparison to Peninsular speakers. Word error rate (WER) in the dictation tasks was
28.2% for the former group and 23.1% for the latter. Regarding the task on commands,
88% of these were correctly recognized for the Peninsular group, whereas the group
from Buenos Aires obtained a recognition percentage of 82.5%. With respect to
speaking style, the system performed worse for speech exhibiting a higher degree of
spontaneity and informality (WER = 30.7%) than for semi-scripted speech on
relatively formal topics (WER = 22.8%). In contrast, results corresponding to the
speech of men and women only showed slight differences which in general did not
prove significant. For male speakers, 86.5% of the commands were correctly
recognized, compared to 84% for female speakers, and WER for the automatic
dictation tasks was 24.9% for the former group and 26.6% for the latter