Re: [Speechsc] Speaker Verification - Insufficient or Noisy Speech

[Nik Waldron <[e-mail]>]

Thanks for your response Dan,

 

The additional code resolves the problem (2) of noisy or otherwise 'bad'
input, and (3) clarifies how to specify that additional data is needed for
training.

 

I had not realised that result structure was intended be used in the case
of enrolments as well as verifications.  I'm not sure if my confusion has
reach beyond myself and justifies an explanatory note in the verification
section.  Thanks for the clarification in any case.  

 

I think that the document would benefit from an appendix (or a separate
document as is the case for SDP) which has examples of all of the major
use cases.  In my opinion examples often resolve confusion for readers
learning a new protocol.  I note that there are examples in the document,
although not any training (enrolment) examples that I recall for speaker
verification.

 

I appreciate the enormous effort that goes into producing a standard
protocol (everyone's a critic).  I'd be happy to contribute some example
conversations for Verification if such a section or document eventuates.

 

Best regards,

 

 

 

NIK WALDRON

 

  _____  

From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 6:29 AM
To: Nik Waldron
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [Speechsc] Speaker Verification - Insufficient or Noisy
Speech

 

Nik,

Thanks for your email.

There are three cases in what you have described:

1. speech not detected (because of SNR problem, etc.).  This will 
return no-input-timeout, just as it would for a speech recognizer.

2. speech detected, neither too early (speech-too-early) nor too much 
(too-much-speech-timeout), but still unusable by the training or 
verification process.  Note that this could happen if the speech 
passes the endpointer threshold but is too garbled or noisy to be of 
use to the verification engine.
This case is not handled in MRCP today.  I have added error code 011, 
"speech-not-usable", for this case.

3. additional turns are needed:  the <decision> result element can be 
used for this.  "undecided" was the value we chose to represent the 
case where the engine did not yet have enough data to decide on a 
verification or training result.  Note that training decisions can 
also be "accepted" or "rejected" just like verification results -- the 
former case means there is sufficient training data and the new 
voiceprint is acceptable.  The latter means there is sufficient 
training data but the new voiceprint is rejected, because for example 
it is too close to an existing voiceprint.

-- dan

On Jan 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Nik Waldron wrote:

> I sent an email previously requesting information on how a speaker
> verification
> system implementing MRCPv2 should cope in the situation, where there 
> was
> insufficient or poor quality speech arriving on the RTP audio 
> stream.  It
> seemed
> to me that was an area of some deficiency in the specification.  I
> received no
> feedback other than one response saying that to his knowledge there 
> were
> no
> other implementers for Speaker Verification.
>
> Below I outline the MRCPv2 exchanges for a training operation:
>
>   C->S:  MRCP/2.0 207 START-SESSION 314161
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>          Repository-URI:http://www.example.com/voiceprintdbase/
>          Voiceprint-Mode:train
>          Voiceprint-Identifier:johnsmith.voiceprint
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 82 314161 200 COMPLETE
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   C->S:  MRCP/2.0 76 VERIFY 314162
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 85 314162 200 IN-PROGRESS
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
> The end-point detector show insufficient data (which is buffered), 
> or bad
> signal quality (bad SNR for example).  Note that no START-OF-INPUT 
> has NOT
>
> been sent although speech has begun.
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 140 VERIFICATION-COMPLETE 314162 COMPLETE
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>          Completion-Cause:002 no-input-timeout
>
> This is undesirable from my perspective since it gives the 
> impression to
> the
> client that no data has been received (untrue in the insufficient data
> case), and
> provides no distinction between this and the "bad data" case.  This
> information
> might be of utility to a call-flow designer in an IVR system.
>
> I also note that in the case of text-independent verifiers several 
> turns
> worth of
> data may be required for a verification.  Several rounds of "no input"
> timeouts
> would surely be confusing to the client, yet this class of verifiers 
> may
> be unable
> to generate and nlsml+xml response on the nth dialog turn.
>
> The enrolment might then continue:
>
>   C->S:  MRCP/2.0 76 VERIFY 314163
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 85 314163 200 IN-PROGRESS
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 96 START-OF-INPUT 314163 IN-PROGRESS
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 131 VERIFICATION-COMPLETE 314163 COMPLETE
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>          Completion-Cause:000 success
>
>   C->S:  MRCP/2.0 76 VERIFY 314164
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 85 314164 200 IN-PROGRESS
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 96 START-OF-INPUT 314164 IN-PROGRESS
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 131 VERIFICATION-COMPLETE 314164 COMPLETE
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>          Completion-Cause:000 success
>
>   C->S:  MRCP/2.0 81 END-SESSION 314174
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
>   S->C:  MRCP/2.0 82 314174 200 COMPLETE
>          Channel-Identifier:32AECB23433801@speakverify
>
> Since I received no responses (perhaps due to being close to the 
> holiday
> season),
> I will venture a proposal for extending the RFC to include the bad 
> signal
> cases
> (+ indicates an addition, * a modification)
>
>   +------------+--------------------------
> +---------------------------+
>   | Cause-Code | Cause-Name               | 
> Description               |
>   +------------+--------------------------
> +---------------------------+
>   | 000        | success                  | VERIFY 
> or                 |
>   |            |                          | VERIFY-FROM-
> BUFFER        |
>   |            |                          | request 
> completed         |
>   |            |                          | successfully.  The 
> verify |
>   |            |                          | decision can 
> be           |
>   |            |                          | "accepted", 
> "rejected",   |
>   |            |                          | or 
> "undecided".           |
>   | 001        | error                    | VERIFY 
> or                 |
>   |            |                          | VERIFY-FROM-
> BUFFER        |
>   |            |                          | request 
> terminated        |
>   |            |                          | prematurely due to 
> a      |
>   |            |                          | verification resource 
> or  |
>   |            |                          | system 
> error.             |
>   | 002        | no-input-timeout         | VERIFY request 
> completed  |
>   |            |                          | with no result due to 
> a   |
>   |            |                          | no-input-
> timeout.         |
>   | 003        | too-much-speech-timeout  | VERIFY request 
> completed  |
>   |            |                          | result due to too 
> much    |
>   |            |                          | 
> speech.                   |
>   | 004        | speech-too-early         | VERIFY request 
> completed  |
>   |            |                          | with no result due 
> to     |
>   |            |                          | spoke too 
> soon.           |
> + | 005        | insufficient-speech      | VERIFY 
> or                 |
> + |            |                          | VERIFY-FROM-
> BUFFER        |
> + |            |                          | request 
> completed         |
> + |            |                          | successfully but 
> had      |
> + |            |                          | insufficient speech 
> to    |
> + |            |                          | complete.  More 
> speech    |
> + |            |                          | will complete the 
> current |
> + |            |                          | incremental 
> operation     |
> + | 006        | bad-speech               | VERIFY 
> or                 |
> + |            |                          | VERIFY-FROM-
> BUFFER        |
> + |            |                          | request 
> completed         |
> + |            |                          | unsuccessfully, 
> the       |
> + |            |                          | speech quality was 
> too    |
> + |            |                          | 
> poor                      |
> *  | 007        | buffer-empty             | VERIFY-FROM-
> BUFFER        |
>   |            |                          | request completed with 
> no |
>   |            |                          | result due to 
> empty       |
>   |            |                          | 
> buffer.                   |
> *  | 008        | out-of-sequence          | Verification 
> operation    |
>   |            |                          | failed due 
> to             |
>   |            |                          | out-of-sequence 
> method    |
>   |            |                          | invocations.  For 
> example |
>   |            |                          | calling VERIFY 
> before     |
>   |            |                          | QUERY-
> VOICEPRINT.         |
> *  | 009        | repository-uri-failure   | Failure 
> accessing         |
>   |            |                          | Repository 
> URI.           |
> *  | 010        | repository-uri-missing   | Repository-uri is 
> not     |
>   |            |                          | 
> specified.                |
> *  | 011        | voiceprint-id-missing    | Voiceprint-
> identification |
>   |            |                          | is not 
> specified.         |
> *  | 012        | voiceprint-id-not-exist  | Voiceprint-
> identification |
>   |            |                          | does not exist in 
> the     |
>   |            |                          | voiceprint 
> repository.    |
>   +------------+--------------------------
> +---------------------------+
>
> Alternatively the new entries could be appended for compatibility.  
> The
> only
> disadvantage to doing so would be that entries would not be grouped 
> in the
> table by category.
>
> I'll happily accept any corrections to my understanding, incase I have
> misread
> the spec, or feedback on my suggestions.
>
>
>
>
> NIK WALDRON
>
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