JPH05143091A - Audio response system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make the processing speed fast and to make a sent document easy to hear or write, and to improve the serviceableness of the audio response system by preventing time from being wasted by the audio response system. CONSTITUTION:This system has a speech output means 1 which sends the document by voice, a signal transmitting means 3 which sends a signal indicating the stop of the document sent by the speech output means 1 or the restart of the transmission of the document, and a signal recognizing means 5 which recognizes the signal sent by the signal transmitting means 3. Further, the system is equipped with a transmission stopping means 7 which stops the transmission of the document from the end place of a phrase of the document being transmitted by the speech output means 1 when the signal sent by the signal recognizing means 5 indicates the stop of the document and a transmission restarting means 9 which sends the rest of the document being stopped when the signal indicates the restart of the document being stopped.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a voice response system, and in particular, by preventing a waste of time even when a long sentence is transmitted from a voice response device and making the transmitted sentence easy to hear, The present invention relates to a voice response system that improves the convenience of voice services.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a voice response system that causes a computer to recognize a human voice and automatically responds to a voice response device has been introduced into, for example, a bank.

In the above voice response system, when notifying a sender of a long sentence such as an address, a pause is provided between each word of a sentence to be transmitted so that the sender can easily hear or write a necessary portion in a memory or the like. Inserted or slowed the transmission speed. In this case, in order for the caller to have enough time to write down the sentence, it is necessary to insert a fairly long pause, so a long pause is taken at a place unnecessary for the caller, thus wasting time, It was difficult for the caller to hear the text.

Further, there has been a method in which, when a sender cannot hear a sentence at a time, a request for retransmission is issued to a voice response device and a repeat request is made until the sentence can be heard or written. In the above method, when a long sentence is repeatedly heard, a sentence unnecessary for the caller is repeatedly heard, which wastes time and is inefficient in processing.

In addition to the above-mentioned method, there is also a method of temporarily suspending the voice system by inputting a pause code when the voice response apparatus requests the caller for a processing code or the like at the break of the voice response system. The above method is suitable for short sentences to be transmitted, but for long sentences, it does not make sense to pause after transmission, so until the sender can hear the sentence or can write it down. Since it was necessary to repeatedly request retransmission, it was not easy to speed up the process.

[0006]

By the way, in the conventional voice response system, for example, when transmitting a long sentence such as an address, a pause is inserted between words to make it easier for the caller to hear the transmitted sentence. However, in the method of slowing the transmission speed, the sender puts a pause at an unnecessary portion, wasting time, and the transmitted text was difficult to hear.

In addition, the method of repeatedly requesting retransmission is as follows:
In the case of transmitting a long sentence, the sender repeatedly issues a request for retransmission until it becomes easy for the listener to listen, so that there is a problem that the processing speed is delayed due to a waste of time.

The present invention has been made to solve such a conventional problem, and an object thereof is to prevent a waste of time in a voice response system, thereby increasing the processing speed and transmitting data. Another object of the present invention is to provide a voice response system that makes it easier to listen to or write down a sentence, and improves the convenience of the system.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is based on the claims correspondence diagram of FIG.
The signal transmission means 3 for transmitting a signal indicating the stop of the text transmission by the voice or the restart of the voice text transmission, the signal recognition means 5 for recognizing the signal transmitted by the signal transmission means 3, and this signal. When the signal transmitted by the recognition means 5 is a signal indicating the stop of the transmitted sentence, the voice output means 1 stops the transmission of the sentence from the end of the phrase of the sentence being transmitted, and the signal. And a transmission restarting means 9 for transmitting the sentence after the sentence whose transmission is stopped by the voice output means 1 when the signal transmitted by the recognition means 5 is a signal indicating the restart of the sentence whose transmission is stopped. Let's make it a summary.

[0010]

According to the above-mentioned structure, the signal indicating the stop of the transmitted voice sentence or the restart of the voice transmitted sentence is transmitted. Recognizing the transmitted signal, when the signal is a signal indicating the stop of the transmitted sentence, the voice output means stops the transmission of the sentence from the end point of the phrase of the sentence being transmitted.

On the other hand, when the transmitted signal is a signal indicating the resumption of a sentence whose transmission is stopped, the voice output means transmits the sentence after the sentence whose transmission is stopped, so that even if a long sentence is transmitted by voice. The sentence can be easily heard and the convenience of the voice response system can be improved.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram of an embodiment according to the voice response system of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, the voice response device 11 is connected to a telephone 17 on the calling side via telephone lines 15a and 15b connected to a telephone network 13.

The voice response device 11 is the network control device 1.
9, PB (push button) signal recognition device 2
3, control device 25, storage device 27 and voice output device 2
9 is connected via the internal bus 21.

The network control unit (NCU) 19 performs network control such as connection to the telephone network 13 and outputs a voice output instruction via the telephone line 15b or various PB (pus).
The HBUTTON) signal is output to the PB signal recognizing device 23 and the like described later via the internal bus 21.

The PB signal recognition device 23 is a network control device 19.
It recognizes the PB signal transmitted via the PB signal. When the PB signal is “#”, the sentence transmitted to the caller is recognized as a pause and an interrupt notification is output to the control device 25 described later. To do. Further, the PB signal recognition device 23 outputs to the control device 25 an interrupt notification of the transmission of the sentence following the paused sentence when the PB signal is “*”.

The control device 25 controls the entire device, and activates an interrupt processing program in response to an interrupt notification input from the PB signal recognition device 23 to control stop or restart of a sentence.

The storage device 27 comprises a hard disk 7 or a memory, and stores voice phrase data or rule synthesis data at a predetermined address.

The voice output device 29 converts voice phrase data or rule synthesis data stored in a predetermined address of the storage device 27 into voices bit by bit, and outputs voices to the telephone line 15b via the network control device 19. To transmit.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a response between the caller side and the voice response device side.

First, the caller requests a message from the telephone set 17,
For example, when an address request is dialed in, the voice response device 1
1 transmits "Tokyo", then "Minatoku" and "Aoyama" through the telephone line 15b. When requesting suspension of the transmitted text, the caller must
After listening to "Aoyama" among the sentences transmitted from a, the "#" button of the telephone 17 is pressed. When the "#" button is pressed, the voice response device 11 generates an interrupt and temporarily stops the voice output. When listening to the continuation of "Aoyama" after pausing voice output, the caller presses the "*" button of the telephone set 17. When the "*" button is pressed, the voice response device 11 transmits "2016", which is a continuation of "Aoyama", and restarts voice output.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, when the caller dials in a message request, for example, an address request from the telephone 17 after turning on the power of the device, the control device 25 of the voice response device 11 issues a voice output instruction to the voice output device 29. The voice output device 29 converts the voice phrase data or rule synthesis data stored at a predetermined address of the storage device 27 into voice and transmits it to the telephone line 15b via the network control device 19 (step 100).

The caller presses the "#" button of the telephone 17 to temporarily stop the voice of the sentence transmitted from the voice response device 11, and the telephone line 15a, the telephone network 13 and the telephone line 15b are used. And is transmitted to the network control device 19 of the voice response device 11. When output from the network control device 19 to the PB signal recognition device 23, the PB signal recognition device 23
Recognizing the "#" button, the interrupt notification is output to the control device 25 (steps 110 to 120). When the interrupt notification is input, the control device 25 activates the interrupt processing program, and the voice output device 29 detects a phrase as a good break between words in the sentence being transmitted. When the phrase is detected, the voice output device 29 stops the transmission of the sentence at the end of the detected phrase and waits for the restart from the control device 25 (step 130).

When the voice is heard again from the pause of the voice transmission, the caller presses the "*" button of the telephone 17 to transmit the voice to the PB signal recognition device 23 of the voice response device 11. PB
The signal recognition device 23 recognizes the “*” button from the transmitted code and notifies the control device 25 of a restart interrupt,
If the button is other than the "*" button, the process returns to step 140 (steps 140 to 150). When the restart interrupt is notified, the control device 25 activates the restart interrupt program and restarts the voice output device 27. The audio output device 27 is
The text following the pause text is converted into voice frame data or rule synthesis data stored in a predetermined address of the storage device 27 and transmitted to the caller via the network control device 19 and the telephone line 15b (step 160). ).

On the other hand, in step 110, if the PB is not recognized, the voice response device 11 transmits the voice data to the caller until the voice data ends, and when the voice data output ends, the process ends and the voice data output. If not completed, the process returns to step 100 (step 180).

As a result, even when a long sentence is transmitted, by executing control of suspension or resumption,
The waste of time is prevented, the processing speed is increased, and the sender can easily hear the transmitted text.

[0029]

As described above, according to the present invention, the stop or resumption of the transmitted sentence is controlled. Therefore, the waste of time in the voice response system can be prevented, the processing speed can be increased and the transmission can be performed. The convenience of the system can be improved by making it easy to hear or write the written text.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram corresponding to claims of a voice response system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram of an embodiment according to the voice response system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a voice response of a voice response system.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the present invention.

[Explanation of Codes] 1 voice output means 3 signal transmission means 5 signal recognition means 7 transmission stop means 9 transmission restart means 11 voice response device 13 telephone 23 PB signal recognition device 25 control device 29 voice output device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A voice output means for transmitting a voice sentence, a signal transmitting means for transmitting a signal indicating the stop of the voice sentence or the resumption of the voice sentence transmission transmitted by the voice output means, and this signal. A signal recognizing means for recognizing a signal transmitted by the transmitting means, and an ending point of a phrase of a sentence being transmitted by the voice output means when the signal transmitted by the signal recognizing means is a signal indicating a stop of a transmitted sentence. Transmission stop means for stopping the transmission of the sentence, and when the signal transmitted by the signal recognition means is a signal indicating the restart of the sentence whose transmission is stopped, the voice output means transmits the sentence after the sentence whose transmission is stopped. A voice response system, comprising: