JP2012185303A - Information processor and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform effective presentation of information by recognizing the age and sexuality (attribute) of a person to produce a performance effect by voice and movement.SOLUTION: An information processor includes attribute determination means for determining the attribute of a person and information output means for outputting guidance information by voice for assisting user's operation for executing various processing, with the voice projection of the guidance information being changed according to the attribute of a person determined by the attribute determination means.

Description

  Embodiments described herein relate generally to an information processing apparatus and a program.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, information terminals that perform guidance, advertisement, solicitation, response, and the like while facing a user are known.

  By the way, in the information terminal as described above, uniform guidance, advertisement, solicitation, response, and the like are performed regardless of the attributes such as the sex of the facing user.

  Thus, there is a problem that when uniform guidance, advertisement, solicitation, response, etc. are performed regardless of attributes such as the gender of the user who faced, it is not effective for the user.

  The information processing apparatus according to the embodiment includes an attribute determination unit that determines an attribute of a person, and voice guidance information for assisting a user operation for performing various processes. And an information output means for changing the mouth according to the attribute and outputting the information.

  The program according to the embodiment includes a computer that controls the information processing apparatus, an attribute determination unit that determines a person's attribute, and voice guidance information that assists a user operation for performing various processes. And functioning as information output means for changing the mouth according to the attribute of the person determined by the above and outputting it.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating an appearance of the information processing apparatus according to the embodiment. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the electrical system of the information providing apparatus. FIG. 3 is a block diagram functionally showing the configuration of the assist device. FIG. 4 is a block diagram functionally showing the configuration of the person determination unit. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of voice guidance. FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an example of voice color and wording settings according to attributes. FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating language switching processing of the information processing apparatus. FIG. 8 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration in the language switching process. FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the flow of language switching processing. FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of setting of advertising content according to attributes.

  FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating an appearance of an information processing apparatus 1 according to the embodiment. The information processing apparatus 1 is used in a shopping center or the like, and is an information terminal (signage) that performs guidance, advertisement, solicitation, response, etc. in two or more languages while facing a customer, for example. is there. Note that the information processing apparatus 1 does not necessarily have to face the customer as long as the attribute can be determined by a person determination unit (attribute determination unit) described later. Such an information processing apparatus 1 includes an information providing apparatus 2 that enables various information to be provided to a customer with a simple operation, and an assist apparatus that assists (supports) the customer's operation on the information providing apparatus 2. 3 is provided.

  First, the information providing apparatus 2 will be described. The information providing device 2 functions as a point service device, for example. As shown in FIG. 1, the information providing device 2 has an assist device 3 placed on the upper surface of the housing 4. Note that a charging station (not shown) for charging the assist device 3 is provided on the upper surface of the housing 4 of the information providing device 2.

  In addition, the information providing device 2 includes a display device 5 constituted by an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or an organic EL display capable of displaying predetermined information in a color image on the housing 4, and the display device 5. For example, a resistive touch panel 6, a card reader / writer 7 for exchanging data with a membership card or a mobile phone as a non-contact type wireless IC card, a discount which will be described later. An issuing port 8 for issuing tickets, gift vouchers and the like is provided. The card reader / writer 7 establishes wireless communication with a non-contact IC card or a mobile phone, and reads / writes information from / to the non-contact IC card or the mobile phone. As an example, a non-contact IC card or a mobile phone can store and save electronic money or a membership number having a value equivalent to cash. In FIG. 1, an antenna (not shown) is built in the card reader / writer 7, and wireless communication with a non-contact IC card or a mobile phone is established through this antenna.

  Such an electrical system of the information providing apparatus 2 is configured as shown in FIG. Here, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the electrical system of the information providing apparatus 2.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the information providing apparatus 2 includes an information provision control unit having a computer configuration including a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a ROM (Read Only Memory) storing a control program, a RAM (Random Access Memory), and the like. 11 and a memory unit 12 composed of a nonvolatile ROM, HDD (Hard Disk Drive), etc., and online with each other via the communication unit 14 connected via the bus 13. It is comprised so that communication can be performed.

  The information providing control unit 11 is connected to the display device 5, the touch panel 6, and the card reader / writer 7 through the bus 13 and the I / O device control unit 15, and further connected to the printer 9. . The printer 9 is built in the housing 4, and prints a discount ticket, a gift voucher, etc. and issues it from the issuing port 8 under the control of the information providing control unit 11. The display device 5 displays an image or a message as visible guidance information for the user under the control of the information provision control unit 11.

  Then, when the CPU obtains a membership number from a non-contact IC card or a mobile phone held by the customer over the card reader / writer 7 by the CPU operating according to the ROM control program, the information provision control unit 11 executes point addition processing. To do. The point addition process includes, in addition to a general point service, a store visit point service in which a predetermined point is given to a customer only by the customer visiting the store regardless of the purchase of the product. Usually, the store visit point service is a service that a customer who visits a store can receive only once a day. In addition, the point addition processing can also execute a lottery, for example, a slot game or the like, and give store visit points according to the lottery result to the customer. And the information provision control part 11 issues a discount ticket, a gift voucher, etc., when a fixed point number is reached as a result of the point addition process.

  Next, the assist device 3 will be described. Here, FIG. 3 is a block diagram functionally showing the configuration of the assist device 3. As shown in FIG.1 and FIG.3, the assist apparatus 3 is mainly provided with the housing | casing 21 which forms its outer shell, the battery 22 etc. which become a drive source. Here, the assist device 3 does not have wiring for supplying power from the outside, and operates with the battery 22. That is, the assist device 3 performs automatic charging by bringing its own battery 22 into contact with a charging electrode of a charging station (not shown) installed on the upper surface of the housing 4 of the information providing device 2. It is configured as follows.

  Furthermore, as shown in FIG.1 and FIG.3, the assist apparatus 3 is provided with the camera part 23, the microphone 24, the speaker 25, the communication part 26, and the operation part 27 in the outer part of the housing | casing 21, Inside the housing 21, an image processing unit 28, a person determination unit 29, a voice recognition unit 30, an operation control unit 31, a storage unit 32, and an overall control unit 33 that controls these hardware in an integrated manner. With. The overall control unit 33 has a computer configuration including a CPU, a ROM that stores a control program, a RAM, and the like.

  The assist device 3 may be sold or transferred in a state where the program is stored in the ROM, or the program stored or transferred in the state stored in the storage medium or by communication via the communication line is arbitrary. May be installed in the assist device 3. As the above storage medium, any type of media such as a magnetic disk, a magneto-optical disk, an optical disk, or a semiconductor memory can be used.

  The camera unit 23 has an image sensor such as a CCD sensor, and images the situation around the assist device 3. The image processing unit 28 performs image processing on the video captured by the camera unit 23 and converts it into a digital image.

  The person determination unit 29 functions as an attribute determination unit, and determines the age and sex of a person standing in front of the information processing apparatus 1 from the image processed by the image processing unit 28. As a technique for discriminating the age and sex of a person, for example, the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-165447 can be used. 4, the person determination unit 29 includes a face area detection unit 51, a face feature extraction unit 52, a personal face feature creation unit 53, a face feature holding unit 54, a collation calculation unit 55, and a determination unit. 56 and a result output unit 57. The person determination unit 29 may be realized by the CPU of the overall control unit 33 being executed according to a program.

  The face area detection unit 51 detects a human face area from the image input by the image processing unit 28. The face feature extraction unit 52 extracts face feature information in the face area detected by the face area detection unit 51.

  The personal face feature creation unit 53 creates personal face feature information in advance from persons of a wide age group by gender. The face feature holding unit 54 stores (holds) a plurality of pieces of personal face feature information created by the personal face feature creation unit 53 in association with the age information and gender information of the person who acquired the personal face feature information. Yes.

  The collation calculation unit 55 obtains the similarity between both pieces of information by collating the face feature information extracted by the face feature extraction unit 52 with a plurality of individual face feature information held in the face feature holding unit 54. The age information and the sex information held in the face feature holding unit 54 are output in correspondence with the degree of similarity equal to or higher than a predetermined value and the personal face feature information obtained with the degree of similarity higher than the predetermined value.

  The determination unit 56 determines the age and gender of the person from the similarity, age, and gender information output from the collation calculation unit 55. Then, the result output unit 57 outputs the determination result of the determination unit 56.

  As shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, the operation mechanism 40 is formed in a part of the casing 21 of the assist device 3, and the operation control unit 31 controls driving of the operation mechanism 40. Here, the operation mechanism 40 is a wing-shaped structure, for example, and can perform an operation of flapping in the vertical direction under the control of the operation control unit 31.

  The speaker 25 outputs a voice message or notification sound to the user. The communication unit 26 is provided to exchange information with the information provision control unit 11. The microphone 24 collects sounds around the assist device 3 and voices of people. The operation unit 27 is used by a user to input information by key operation based on information output from the speaker 25 or the like.

  The voice recognition unit 30 receives a voice signal input through the microphone 24 and generates a voice recognition result of characters and word strings corresponding to the collected voice of the person. The voice recognition unit 30 recognizes the utterance content of the user by comparing the voice signal input through the microphone 24 with a language dictionary. The voice recognition unit 30 includes a dictionary memory that stores dictionaries for each language (Japanese dictionary, English dictionary, and Chinese dictionary) corresponding to three languages, Japanese, English, and Chinese.

  The storage unit 32 stores voice guidance 60 and content 70 for storing information for assisting the operation of the information providing apparatus 2. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of the voice guidance 60. As shown in FIG. 5, the voice guidance 60 is for assisting user operations for executing various processes, and one voice guidance information to which a guidance number is assigned is provided in Japanese, English, and Chinese. The three languages are set. For example, for voice guidance information "Hello .IC by card coupon appear when you touch!" In Japanese, it is also set voice guidance information that has been translated into English and Chinese. Similarly, the content 70 is for advertising to the user, and three languages of Japanese, English, and Chinese are set for one piece of advertising content information assigned with a content number. Note that the voice guidance information and the advertisement content information may be subjected to voice synthesis processing for converting text information into a voice signal, or may be a voice signal prepared in advance. Since the speech synthesis technology has already been established and its software is commercially available, the description thereof will be omitted.

  In the speech synthesis process, the mouthpiece (voice color, wording, etc.) may be changed in accordance with the age and sex (person attribute) of the person determined by the determination unit 56 and output from the result output unit 57. good. According to the speech synthesis process, it is possible to easily set / change the phrase according to the voice color. For example, talking to a woman ’s voice for a man and a child ’s voice for a woman will raise the level of attention and make it highly compatible. FIG. 6 shows an example of voice color and wording settings according to the age and sex (character attributes) of the person.

  In this way, changing the voice color and wording of voice guidance information and promotional content information according to the age and gender (person attributes) of a person can be done not only by voice synthesis processing but also by recorded voice, but the work and data are enormous. become.

  Next, functions executed by the information processing apparatus 1 will be described. As described above, the information processing apparatus 1 is an information terminal (signage) that performs guidance, advertisement, solicitation, response, and the like in a language of three languages while facing a customer. Conventionally, in the information processing apparatus 1 capable of handling a plurality of languages, after selecting a language to be used, guidance, advertisement, solicitation, and response are started in the selected language. That is, in such an information processing apparatus 1, when the language is selected by voice input, for example, when the language is changed from the currently set English to Japanese, the English is spoken. Will change to Japanese.

  In such a case, a customer who cannot speak English cannot change the language from English to Japanese. In addition, when the customer's pronunciation is not clear, there is a high possibility that the input speech is erroneously recognized and the language cannot be changed.

  Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, the information processing apparatus 1 switches the languages (for example, three languages of Japanese, English, and Chinese) at intervals including a certain waiting time, and finally the user responds. The following language is used to provide guidance and response.

  Here, FIG. 8 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration in the language switching process, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a flow of the language switching process.

  The program executed by the CPU of the overall control unit 33 of the assist device 3 includes a module configuration including each unit (information output unit 81, response detection unit 82, processing language determination unit 83, and switch reception unit 84) as shown in FIG. As the actual hardware, the CPU reads the program from the ROM and executes it, so that the above-described units are loaded onto the RAM, and the information output means 81, the response detection means 82, the processing language determination means 83, the switching acceptance Means 84 is generated on the RAM.

  As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 9, the information output unit 81 determines the start of voice guidance when the person determination unit 29 determines a person or when a user key operation is received from the operation unit 27 (step S <b> 9). The voice guidance information to which a predetermined guidance number ("1" at the start) is assigned is acquired from the voice guidance 60 (step S2).

  Thereafter, the information output means 81 switches the guidance in three languages Japanese, English, and Chinese in the voice guidance information at a predetermined interval time and outputs it from the speaker 25, and switches the voice guidance in the three languages. Accordingly, the dictionary (Japanese dictionary, English dictionary, and Chinese dictionary) of the speech recognition unit 30 is switched (steps S3 to S14). Here, the interval including a certain waiting time for switching the language is set to about 10 seconds. The reason for including a certain waiting time in the interval is to secure a predetermined time after guidance by voice guidance as a response time for the user.

  Note that the interval time can be changed by receiving a key operation of the user's interval time setting button from the operation unit 27. For example, in the case where English is not spoken very much but a response is made in English with a language learning meaning, the interval time can be increased so as to increase the response timing.

  When the language is switched at intervals including a certain waiting time as described above, the response detection means 82 responds to the voice guidance and returns a response according to the language of the voice guidance. When it is determined that the voice has been recognized by the unit 30 (Yes in step S5, Yes in step S9, Yes in step S13), it is determined that the speech recognized language is a language that the user can understand.

  Then, the processing language determination unit 83 sets a dictionary (Japanese dictionary, English dictionary, or Chinese dictionary) of the speech recognition unit 30 corresponding to the language that has responded, and performs processing using the language (for example, guidance) Or response) is executed (step S15). For example, the processing language determination unit 83 sequentially acquires and outputs voice guidance information to which a guidance number after the voice guidance that has been responded is given.

  By the way, the process using the language in step S15 includes advertisement. In such advertising, it is effective to change the voice content and wording and change the advertising content according to the age and sex (character attributes) of the person. Therefore, in the information processing apparatus 1 of the embodiment, the advertisement content is selected according to the age and sex (person attribute) of the person determined by the determination unit 56 and output from the result output unit 57, and the selected advertisement content A voice based on the text is generated by a voice synthesis process. For example, it promotes trendy fashions for young women, and a popular brand suit specialty store for older men. FIG. 10 shows an example of the setting of the advertising content in accordance with the age and sex (person attribute) of the person.

  The process of step S15 is repeated until an instruction to end guidance or advertisement is given (Yes in step S16) or until a language switching instruction is given (Yes in step S17). When there is an instruction to end guidance or advertisement, the CPU of the overall control unit 33 returns to the standby for starting the voice guidance in step S1. The guidance or the end instruction of the advertisement may be when there is no response for a certain period of time, when the person determination unit 29 cannot determine the person from the image captured by the camera unit 23, or from the operation unit 27 by the user. The key operation of the response end button may be accepted, or the voice recognition unit 30 may recognize a keyword (such as “bye-bye”).

  Further, before the guidance or advertisement end instruction (No in Step S16), when the switching receiving unit 84 receives a key operation of the user language switching button from the operation unit 27 (Yes in Step S17), etc. The information output means 81 acquires the voice guidance information corresponding to the voice guidance that was output at the time of the switching instruction and the advertising content information corresponding to the advertising content (step S18), and the three countries, Japanese, English, and Chinese. The word guidance and the advertising content are switched at a predetermined interval time and output from the speaker 25, and the dictionary of the speech recognition unit 30 (Japanese dictionary, English dictionary, and so on) is switched in accordance with the switching of the three language voice guidance and the advertising content. The Chinese dictionary is switched (steps S3 to S14).

  In the information processing apparatus 1 according to the embodiment, guidance and advertisement contents for assisting the operation of the information providing apparatus 2 are presented in three languages of Japanese, English, and Chinese. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and guidance and advertising content for assisting the operation of the information providing device 2 may be displayed on the display device 5, for example, in Japanese, English, and Chinese texts. Thus, when displaying guidance and advertising content for assisting the operation of the information providing device 2 on the display device 5 as text, the user can request information by the touch panel 6 or voice response. . Further, in the case where guidance or advertising content for assisting the operation of the information providing device 2 is displayed on the display device 5 as text, a button is displayed on the touch panel 6 only during the reserved interval time, The voice recognition of the language at that time is operated by changing the color and displaying it.

  In addition, guidance and advertising content for assisting the operation of the information providing apparatus 2 may be used in combination with voice presentation and text display. Further, in the case of using both voice presentation and text display, the language may be changed between voice presentation and text display. For example, guidance and promotional contents are presented in audio in Japanese, and guidance and promotional contents are displayed in text in English.

  Further, in the information processing apparatus 1 according to the embodiment, the voice guidance and the voice of the advertising content and the wording are determined according to the age and sex (person attributes) of the person determined by the determination unit 56 and output from the result output unit 57. In addition, the advertisement content is selected, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the information output unit 81 is formed in a part of the casing 21 of the assist device 3 in accordance with the age and sex (person attribute) of the person determined by the determination unit 56 and output from the result output unit 57. The operation of the operation mechanism 40 may be changed by controlling the operation control unit 31. In this way, by performing the effect of movement according to the attributes of the person, it is possible to improve store visitor guidance and customer attraction.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, in order to assist the user operation for executing various processes, the guidance information set in a plurality of languages is output by switching each language at a constant time interval. 81, when outputting guidance information while switching each language, response detection means 82 for detecting a response to the guidance information, and a process for determining the language that has detected the response to the guidance information as a language for executing the process By providing the language determination means 83, the voice guidance that matches the language understandable by the user is selected from the voice guidance in three languages, Japanese, English, and Chinese, without any special selection operation. be able to.

  In addition, according to the present embodiment, the attribute determination unit 29 that determines the attribute of the person facing the information processing apparatus 1 from an image obtained by capturing the situation around the information processing apparatus 1, and the user for executing various processes By providing information output means 81 that outputs voice guidance information for assisting the operation by changing the mouth according to the attribute of the person determined by the attribute determination means 29, the age and sex of the person ( Recognizing a person's attributes) and producing a presentation effect by voice or movement can guide the store visitor and attract more customers, so that effective information presentation can be performed.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Information processing apparatus 29 Attribute discrimination | determination means 40 Operating mechanism 81 Information output means 82 Response detection means 83 Processing language decision means 84 Switching acceptance means

JP 2001-83991 A

Claims (6)

Attribute discriminating means for discriminating an attribute of a person;
Information output means for outputting guidance information by voice for assisting a user operation for executing various processes by changing a mouth according to the attribute of the person determined by the attribute determination means;
An information processing apparatus comprising: The information output means outputs the advertisement content information by voice for advertising to the user by changing the mouth according to the attribute of the person determined by the attribute determination means.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1. The information output means converts the text information to be the guidance information or the advertising content information into a voice signal and performs a voice synthesis process for changing a mouth according to the attribute of the person.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 2. The information output means selects one advertisement content information according to the attribute of the person determined by the attribute determination means from a plurality of advertisement content information prepared in advance;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 2 or 3. It further includes an operation mechanism that is formed in the housing and can control the operation,
The information output means changes the operation of the operation mechanism according to the attribute of the person determined by the attribute determination means;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1. A computer for controlling the information processing apparatus;
Attribute discriminating means for discriminating an attribute of a person;
Information output means for outputting guidance information by voice for assisting a user operation for executing various processes by changing a mouth according to the attribute of the person determined by the attribute determination means;
Program to function as.

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