Speech Recognition

Speech recognition is the process of recognizing the words spoken by a human and converting them to a digital form that can then be processed. This goes beyond simply recording speech and playing it back. Usually, speech recognition uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to make sense of the spoken words that have been captured.

The data can then be used for multiple outcomes. It can be converted to text (speech-to-text) or it can trigger an action. Speech recognition is required for any application that follows voice commands or answers spoken questions.

Speech recognition, like NLP, can be challenging because people talk with different accents, speeds, emphasis, and intonation, and may not even speak out every word distinctly.

One of the most commonly used applications of speech recognition, specifically speech-to-text, is in medical transcription. Often, medical professionals do not have their hands free to write down notes. For example, if a doctor is performing surgery, he or she may want to note specific observations for future reference. In such a situation, they can speak the observations out to a recording device, which will then process the words spoken by the doctor to text documents.

The other common and well-used applications of speech recognition are virtual private assistants such as Siri and Alexa on smartphones. In these applications, speech recognition can also have an added check for the owner of the voice. While the words may be recognized, the accent, tone, and other characteristics of human speech are compared against pre-recorded samples of the human authorized to give commands. The speech data is processed only if the characteristics match. This provides security against the misuse of your smartphone.