Art and Business of Speech Recognition: Creating the Noble Voice, The

Chapter Two. Technology Primer: About Speech Recognizers

Port de bras is the foundation of the great science of the use of arms in classical ballet. The arms, legs and body are developed separately through special exercises. But only the ability to find the proper position for her arms lends a finesse to the artistic expression of the dancer, and renders full harmony to her dance.

—AGRIPPINA VAGANOVA

A speech recognizer listens to people say something, and then attempts to match what they've said against a list of known (or expected) words or phrases. It sounds simple, but consider the size of the challenge. In an over-the-phone speech-recognition system, we're talking about a single computer that has to listen to as many as 48 or 96 people ...