JPH0365707B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a reception telephone that allows telephone calls to be answered using the voice of a person other than the person receiving the call.

Generally, in a telephone call, the caller has the choice of whether or not to make the call, and the called party is placed in the position of having to answer the call regardless of the person's intention. However, depending on the recipient's circumstances, they may want to talk to a specific caller, but
You may not want to talk to other callers, and in the latter case, you may not want the caller to know that you are answering the call. In such a case, it would be possible to have the secretary select the caller, but it is economically impossible for all telephone users to use the secretary.

For this reason, for example, when a call is received, the machine responds in a standard manner with a predetermined message, and by monitoring this response, the receiving party can determine that the other party is the caller who needs to make the call. In some cases, a telephone for answering calls may be used, which requires switching between telephones.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of an answering telephone based on this idea, which is an application of an answering machine. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a telephone basic function unit for making and receiving calls, sending and receiving calls, etc., including a line interface 2, a sending circuit 3, a receiving circuit 4, a transmitter 5, a receiver 6, a calling/receiving circuit 7, and a dial. 8 and a sounder 9. Reference numeral 10 denotes a speech synthesis section, which is composed of a speech parameter memory 11 and a speech synthesizer 12. Reference numeral 13 denotes a response device, which is comprised of a setting section 14 for setting the contents of the message to be sent, and a controller 15 for detecting incoming calls. Note that 16 is a switch, and L is a subscriber line.

The conventional telephone configured in this manner operates as follows. When there is an incoming call, the controller 15 detects the incoming signal supplied from the subscriber line L via the line interface 2 and controls the setting unit 14. As a result, the setting unit 14 supplies the speech synthesizer 12 via the controller 15 with a message signal for generating a message that is determined to be sent at the time of response.
reads necessary parameters from the voice parameter memory 11 in response to the message signal, performs voice synthesis, and sends this synthesized signal to the subscriber line L via the switch 16 and the line interface 2.

In this case, if the contents of the message are exactly as they would be at a telephone exchange, it can be determined while monitoring the call whether or not the other party is the caller who needs to make the call. If you are a caller who needs to make a call, you can simply switch the switch 16 and make a call; if you are a caller of any other type,
For example, if the message after the caller is known is "Now,
I'll be back at my seat by around x tomorrow as I'm not home. '', the caller can select and make a call.

However, telephones based on this conventional concept can only send predetermined messages, so when changing over for a call, the flow of conversation is not smooth and the caller feels strange. had.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a telephone for answering calls that does not make the caller feel uncomfortable when switching to a call.

In order to achieve this purpose, this invention
The voice synthesis unit is controlled according to the output of the voice recognition unit that recognizes the syllable components spoken by the answerer on the receiving side, so that the answerer responds with a human voice that is completely different from the caller's voice. It is.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, and the same parts as in FIG. 1 are designated by the same symbols. In the figure, 17 is a speech recognition unit, which compares the recognition memory 18 in which syllable components are stored, and the syllables of the speaker with the data in the recognition memory 18, and syllable component elements such as spectrum, level, and formant distribution. It is composed of a recognizer 19 that recognizes. Note that 16a and 16b are switches.

The operation of the telephone according to the present invention configured as described above is as follows. When the telephone operator makes a call, this call signal is supplied to the recognizer 19 via the switch 16b. The recognizer 19 compares the syllable components of the transmitted speech signal with the data stored in the recognition memory 18, and for each syllable component, spectra,
Discrimination outputs constituting syllable component elements such as level and formant distribution are generated and supplied to the speech synthesizer 12. As a result, the speech synthesizer 12 reads data corresponding to the supplied signal from the speech parameter memory 11 and generates synthesized speech corresponding to the supplied signal. The generated synthesized speech is then sent to the subscriber line L via the switch 16a and the line interface 2. At this time, if the data stored in the voice parameter memory is completely different from the voice component of the caller, for example, even if the caller is using a male voice, a woman will be answering the caller. It can give the impression that you are

Therefore, when this telephone is used to answer an incoming call, it sounds to the caller as if a secretary is answering the call. Therefore, the caller on the receiving side does not let the caller know that he or she is transmitting, and can freely select the caller and pass the call.

In this case, since the content of the message sent is the exact words spoken by the caller on the receiving side, a very natural response can be made. Then, by switching the switches 16a and 16b, a call can be made to a necessary caller using the caller's real voice.

As explained above, since the reception telephone according to the present invention changes the voice of the caller to the voice of a different person to make a call, it is possible to send any message immediately corresponding to the content of the call. It has the effect of being able to select the caller while responding extremely smoothly without knowing who is the caller on the receiving side, and giving the caller the impression that the caller is being answered by a secretary. .

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a reception telephone configured using a conventional concept, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a reception telephone according to the present invention. 1...Telephone basic function section, 10...Speech synthesis section, 11
...Speech parameter memory, 12...Speech synthesizer, 1
7...Speech recognition unit, 18...Recognition memory, 19...Recognizer.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A telephone basic functional unit that performs outgoing, incoming, sending, and receiving calls, etc., a voice recognition unit that recognizes the voice of a caller, and a voice recognition unit whose recognition results and contents are the same as those of the voice recognition unit and which are transmitted. A reception telephone that includes a voice synthesis section that generates a synthesized voice that is different from the voice of the speaker.