Enhancing End-to-End Speech Recognition for Multi-turn Medical Interviews

Core Concepts

The author presents a novel approach, post-decoder biasing, to enhance the recognition performance of rare words in E2E models by constructing a transform probability matrix based on training transcriptions. This method guides the model to prioritize recognizing words in the biasing list, resulting in significant improvements for subsets of rare words.

Abstract

The content discusses the challenges faced in optimizing end-to-end (E2E) models for automatic speech recognition (ASR) tasks, particularly in scenarios with domain-specific rare words. The author introduces the Medical Interview (MED-IT) dataset and proposes post-decoder biasing as a solution to enhance recognition performance for rare words. Experiments show relative improvements of 9.3% and 5.1% for different subsets of rare words.

The paper highlights the importance of knowledge-intensive contexts and the impact of rare words on downstream tasks like question answering. It emphasizes the need for specialized datasets like MED-IT to improve ASR systems' performance in recognizing domain-specific terms. The proposed post-decoder biasing method is shown to be effective in addressing these challenges and enhancing recognition accuracy.

By focusing on enhancing rare word recognition through post-decoder biasing, the study contributes to advancing speech recognition technology, especially in knowledge-intensive domains like medical consultations. The experiments demonstrate promising results that can potentially lead to more accurate and efficient ASR systems tailored for specific contexts.

Stats

In our experiments, for subsets of rare words appearing in the training speech between 10 and 20 times, and between 1 and 5 times, the proposed method achieves a relative improvement of 9.3% and 5.1%, respectively.
Rare word error rates are reported as follows: RWER(20) - 37.8%, RWER(10) - 67.3%, RWER(5) - 82.1%, RWER(1) - 88.1%.

Quotes

"Rare words often contain important meanings with a significant impact on downstream tasks such as question answering."
"The scarcity of speech data in knowledge-intensive scenarios has been one of the limiting factors in academic research."

Key Insights Distilled From

Post-decoder Biasing for End-to-End Speech Recognition of Multi-turn Medical Interview

by Heyang Liu,Y... at arxiv.org 03-04-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.00370.pdf

Deeper Inquiries

How can post-decoder biasing be adapted or extended to other domains beyond medical interviews?

Post-decoder biasing can be adapted to various domains beyond medical interviews by customizing the biasing lists to include domain-specific rare words. For instance, in legal settings, specialized legal terms and jargon could be included in the biasing list to improve recognition accuracy for such terminology. Similarly, in financial contexts, unique financial terms and acronyms could be incorporated into the biasing list. By tailoring the biasing lists to suit different domains, the post-decoder method can enhance recognition performance for rare words across a wide range of specialized fields.

What potential limitations or drawbacks might arise from relying heavily on biased recognition lists?

Relying heavily on biased recognition lists may introduce certain limitations and drawbacks. One potential drawback is that over-reliance on biased lists could lead to a lack of adaptability in recognizing new or evolving vocabulary within a domain. If the model becomes too dependent on specific words in the biasing list, it may struggle with accurately recognizing out-of-vocabulary terms that are not included in the list.
Another limitation is related to generalization across different datasets or domains. Biasing lists are typically tailored to specific datasets or contexts, which means that models trained with heavy reliance on these biases may not perform as well when applied to diverse datasets outside their training scope.
Additionally, there is a risk of introducing biases inherent in the creation of these biased lists. Biases present in training data used for constructing these lists could propagate through the system and impact decision-making processes based on recognized speech.

How could advancements in contextual speech recognition impact broader applications outside specialized domains?

Advancements in contextual speech recognition have significant implications for broader applications outside specialized domains by improving overall accuracy and efficiency of speech-to-text conversion systems.

Enhanced User Experience: Improved contextual understanding allows for more natural interactions between users and devices across various applications like virtual assistants, customer service bots, transcription services.
Increased Productivity: Better context comprehension leads to more accurate transcriptions and faster response times which can boost productivity levels especially in tasks involving dictation or note-taking.
Accessibility: Advanced contextual speech recognition technologies make digital content more accessible for individuals with disabilities who rely on voice commands for navigation and interaction.
Personalization: Contextual understanding enables systems to tailor responses based on individual preferences leading to personalized user experiences across platforms like smart homes, e-commerce recommendations etc.
Cross-Domain Integration: The ability of contextual models to adapt quickly between different topics facilitates seamless integration into multi-domain applications such as multilingual translation services or cross-industry communication platforms.

Overall, advancements in this field have far-reaching implications beyond specialized areas by revolutionizing how we interact with technology daily while enhancing efficiency and accessibility across diverse sectors including education, entertainment industry healthcare etc..