Interactive Learning of Spoken Words and Their Meanings Through an Audio-Visual Interface

Naoto IWAHASHI

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information and Systems   Vol.E91-D    No.2    pp.312-321
Publication Date: 2008/02/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1361
DOI: 10.1093/ietisy/e91-d.2.312
Print ISSN: 0916-8532
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Speech and Hearing
Keyword: 
mutli-modal interface,  word acquisition,  multi-media processing,  interactive learning,  active learning,  word meaning,  

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Summary: 
This paper presents a new interactive learning method for spoken word acquisition through human-machine audio-visual interfaces. During the course of learning, the machine makes a decision about whether an orally input word is a word in the lexicon the machine has learned, using both speech and visual cues. Learning is carried out on-line, incrementally, based on a combination of active and unsupervised learning principles. If the machine judges with a high degree of confidence that its decision is correct, it learns the statistical models of the word and a corresponding image category as its meaning in an unsupervised way. Otherwise, it asks the user a question in an active way. The function used to estimate the degree of confidence is also learned adaptively on-line. Experimental results show that the combination of active and unsupervised learning principles enables the machine and the user to adapt to each other, which makes the learning process more efficient.