Speech Recognition - Ready for Prime Time?
by Jarred Walton on April 21, 2006 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The Contenders
When I first made the decision to try out speech recognition, there was an overwhelming favorite on the market: Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I had never used it before, but I'd heard about it and it was generally well-regarded. I picked up a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0 Preferred and commenced using it. The training process took about 20 minutes, another 20 or 30 minutes was spent scanning my documents for words and speech patterns, and then it was basically done and I was ready to start dictating. I've now been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for several months, and during that time training has further improved the accuracy.
Dragon isn't a particularly cheap piece of software, but when you consider the versatility it offers and the fact that I've already spent about $700 on a desk, chair, and keyboard in an attempt to make an "ergonomic workspace," spending another $100-$200 is hardly a concern. The $100 Standard version apparently has reduced functionality, though apparently the only major difference is that it lacks the ability to transcribe recordings. For home use and personal use, you can get a discount on the Preferred version and buy it for $160. Unless that extra $60 is really important to you, I would have to recommend going with the Preferred version -- you never know when the ability to transcrive a recording will come in handy.
Of course, Microsoft Office 2003 also has built-in speech recognition. I have never heard anyone really talk about it, and I have never tried it myself, but having become familiar with Dragon NaturallySpeaking I figured it was only fair that I give Microsoft's product a shot. After all, practically every business in the world has a copy of Microsoft Office 2003 installed, so perhaps there isn't even a need to go out and purchase separate speech recognition software. One other item that may be of interest is how much processing time each product needs. Voice recognition may or may not benefit from dual core processors, but there's only one way to find out.
I conducted testing on several systems, but eventually settled on using one for the actual benchmarking. If there's interest, I can go back and look at performance on other systems, but for the most part I have found that modern Pentium/Athlon systems are sufficient - with a few exceptions that I'll get to in a moment.
Test System:
AMD Athlon X2 3800+ @ 2.60 GHz (10x260HTT)
2x1024MB Patriot SBLK @ DDR-433 (CPU/12)
Western Digital 250GB 16MB SATA-2 HDD
I began using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a single core Athlon 64 3200+ socket 754 Newcastle (@2.42 GHz) -- my old primary system, which I have been using for about 18 months. I finally broke down recently and decided it was time to move on to a dual core setup for my main system. Both systems are of course overclocked, because that's the type of user I am. Since this is a look at a software technology as opposed to a hardware article, the system clock speed isn't particularly relevant except as a guideline of what level of performance you can expect.
The major reason for the upgrade is gaming - the old AGP 6800GT wasn't cutting it anymore, and the only reasonable upgrade required PCI Express. (That should tell you something about the amount of processing power most business tasks require - the 754 platform is still more than sufficient for most people!) I figured since I was already switching to socket 939, there was no reason not to add a second processor core. That extra core does help out when I'm trying to do multiple things at once, and Dragon does tend to consume a decent amount of resources. MMO gamers might find it useful as a way of chatting without having to type (and it might just cut down on the use of annoying abbreviations if more people did it, but I digress...). When I'm only dictating, though, I don't really notice the difference between my old system and my new system as far as speech recognition is concerned.
So how do you test and benchmark speech recognition packages? The more real world a test is the better, and what could be more real world than an article written for our web site? How about this very article? I'm going to take the first two pages of the article in their present form (minus the Isaac Asimov quote and potentially some later edits) and dictate the text into a sound file. All punctuation will be dictated, and I will edit the final sound file to remove any speech errors. The final sound file will be played back for both speech recognition packages, and with 1181 words of text we can come up with an accuracy rating.
This first sound file is basically my "dictation voice". There are two elements to training a speech recognition program: first, it learns to recognize your voice; second, you learn to adapt your voice to improve accuracy. After creating this first sound file, I realized that my voice didn't sound very normal to me. I'm okay with that, but I decided a second sound file was needed to stress test the software packages. I read the text a second time for this sound file, with a few minor updates to the text, but this time I spoke in a more natural voice and I didn't go back to correct any errors. I won't count any of my errors against the accuracy score, but this will hopefully provide additional insight into how these two voice recognition packages perform.
When I first made the decision to try out speech recognition, there was an overwhelming favorite on the market: Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I had never used it before, but I'd heard about it and it was generally well-regarded. I picked up a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0 Preferred and commenced using it. The training process took about 20 minutes, another 20 or 30 minutes was spent scanning my documents for words and speech patterns, and then it was basically done and I was ready to start dictating. I've now been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for several months, and during that time training has further improved the accuracy.
Dragon isn't a particularly cheap piece of software, but when you consider the versatility it offers and the fact that I've already spent about $700 on a desk, chair, and keyboard in an attempt to make an "ergonomic workspace," spending another $100-$200 is hardly a concern. The $100 Standard version apparently has reduced functionality, though apparently the only major difference is that it lacks the ability to transcribe recordings. For home use and personal use, you can get a discount on the Preferred version and buy it for $160. Unless that extra $60 is really important to you, I would have to recommend going with the Preferred version -- you never know when the ability to transcrive a recording will come in handy.
Of course, Microsoft Office 2003 also has built-in speech recognition. I have never heard anyone really talk about it, and I have never tried it myself, but having become familiar with Dragon NaturallySpeaking I figured it was only fair that I give Microsoft's product a shot. After all, practically every business in the world has a copy of Microsoft Office 2003 installed, so perhaps there isn't even a need to go out and purchase separate speech recognition software. One other item that may be of interest is how much processing time each product needs. Voice recognition may or may not benefit from dual core processors, but there's only one way to find out.
I conducted testing on several systems, but eventually settled on using one for the actual benchmarking. If there's interest, I can go back and look at performance on other systems, but for the most part I have found that modern Pentium/Athlon systems are sufficient - with a few exceptions that I'll get to in a moment.
Test System:
AMD Athlon X2 3800+ @ 2.60 GHz (10x260HTT)
2x1024MB Patriot SBLK @ DDR-433 (CPU/12)
Western Digital 250GB 16MB SATA-2 HDD
I began using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a single core Athlon 64 3200+ socket 754 Newcastle (@2.42 GHz) -- my old primary system, which I have been using for about 18 months. I finally broke down recently and decided it was time to move on to a dual core setup for my main system. Both systems are of course overclocked, because that's the type of user I am. Since this is a look at a software technology as opposed to a hardware article, the system clock speed isn't particularly relevant except as a guideline of what level of performance you can expect.
The major reason for the upgrade is gaming - the old AGP 6800GT wasn't cutting it anymore, and the only reasonable upgrade required PCI Express. (That should tell you something about the amount of processing power most business tasks require - the 754 platform is still more than sufficient for most people!) I figured since I was already switching to socket 939, there was no reason not to add a second processor core. That extra core does help out when I'm trying to do multiple things at once, and Dragon does tend to consume a decent amount of resources. MMO gamers might find it useful as a way of chatting without having to type (and it might just cut down on the use of annoying abbreviations if more people did it, but I digress...). When I'm only dictating, though, I don't really notice the difference between my old system and my new system as far as speech recognition is concerned.
So how do you test and benchmark speech recognition packages? The more real world a test is the better, and what could be more real world than an article written for our web site? How about this very article? I'm going to take the first two pages of the article in their present form (minus the Isaac Asimov quote and potentially some later edits) and dictate the text into a sound file. All punctuation will be dictated, and I will edit the final sound file to remove any speech errors. The final sound file will be played back for both speech recognition packages, and with 1181 words of text we can come up with an accuracy rating.
This first sound file is basically my "dictation voice". There are two elements to training a speech recognition program: first, it learns to recognize your voice; second, you learn to adapt your voice to improve accuracy. After creating this first sound file, I realized that my voice didn't sound very normal to me. I'm okay with that, but I decided a second sound file was needed to stress test the software packages. I read the text a second time for this sound file, with a few minor updates to the text, but this time I spoke in a more natural voice and I didn't go back to correct any errors. I won't count any of my errors against the accuracy score, but this will hopefully provide additional insight into how these two voice recognition packages perform.
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JarredWalton - Sunday, April 23, 2006 - link
Isn't there some comedy routine by an older gentleman that does the whole "verbalize punctuation" shtick? One of the things I might look at in the follow-up article is showing how Dragon does when turning on automatic punctuation. It will attempt to insert periods, commas, and question marks (at least, I think it does question marks) depending on how you speak the text. Obviously, that means you have to be a lot more careful when reading/dictating.I found it more useful to manually dictate my punctuation, since on frequent occasions I will pause midsentence to try and think what I want to say -- or because of some interruption. Basically, as a writer, punctuation is something that I take pretty seriously. DNS does pretty well with getting it right, but it also makes plenty of mistakes.
Admiral Ackbar - Monday, April 24, 2006 - link
Victor Borge. Its called phonetic punctuation. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen (I had the privelege of seeing him not long before he died).Actually though, it could work and its quicker than actually saying the word period or question mark.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 25, 2006 - link
I bet it takes a hell of a lot of practice, too! Especially if you want to speak at a reasonable clip. I remember laughing my butt off at Victor Borge's routine quite a few years ago. On the bright side, more people might learn how to use proper punctuation!You also have to worry about the speech recognition software starting to recognize random noises (like a cough) as actual dictation. That happens already, but usually Dragon is smart enough to realize that my cough was merely a loud noise. Sometimes I get the random "the" from it, though.
Tujan - Saturday, April 22, 2006 - link
I would be interested in knowing exactly what the program does. Something more acknowledged towards its features,interaction ect. Rather than a somewhat comparison between two programs - a somewhat benchmark.For example - you mention command mode. But dont get any further involved with what that encapsulates. That alone,has its limitations Im sure. Yet Im am also sure that many might want to know exactly what it is about. For example Start-My Documents-FolderName-Open...and so on. Is this how it works ? Or something like the HTPC scenario in wich you Query your favorite TV show - "Channel-channel name",..Or 'program name-file name-open'' . For the HTPC.
Everybody should know what a vaccuum cleaner can do for you. Ya know. But what can you do for your vacuum cleaner.
I imagine (note imagine'yes),given speech recognistion what well enough along,you could utilize a command line interface,and programmers would be able to program more quickly,and easily. Other than having your vacuum cleaner attack you ya know,you could do something like 'Dir - listing of directories. Or MD - make directories.
Dont know any programming code,so anything other than exampling DOS command line.STill you could see what Im getting at. Program your HTML for example.
But within the Windows environment,you could ask how well the program takes commands,and multitasks. Since you could use the wave file to do this. and so on.
Im just curious. Dont see a lot of interesting software reviews dealing with the nuts and bolts of the application itself lately.
Try a ram drive with that - take the chains off maybe ?
Ardemus - Friday, April 21, 2006 - link
1) How was the software trained? Were you using "normal" or "dictation" speech paterns?2) Dragon may do much better with a wav over a real time system because it can read ahead and analyze the whole file.
3) Does dragon give up resources when other applications ask for them?
4) What sort of errors were made? How many errors are there after a spell and gramar check in MS word?
5) Can you correct the errors in each program and scan again, to measure the improvement?
6) I've heard that you can overstress and damage your vocal cords through speech recognition (RSI of the voice). Have you researched that?
7) How often did both packages make the same mistakes? If you ran it through both packages in real time minimal mode, then DNS in several different speeds, could you run an algorythm to on the different results to increase accuracy?
Nick Burger
JarredWalton - Friday, April 21, 2006 - link
1 -- Both were trained in the same manner, basically me speaking the text, but doing my best to enunciate words a little better than I might do in the real world. Besides, good fiction is a useful skill to have, particularly if you're speaking with business people.2 -- That's entirely possible. One of the odd things is that the accuracy shown in my dictation benchmarks doesn't seem to correspond with my own personal experience of trying to use the software. It may simply be the way that I speak when trying to write articles, but I find that Microsoft is far worse in normal use. That's not a very scientific method, but I can't emphasize enough how much more difficult I find Microsoft's speech interface is to use.
3 -- Dragon runs as a normal priority process, and when you're dictating with the accuracy set to "medium" it uses 20 to 50% of the processor time (on a single core Athlon 64 2.4 GHz). The memory footprint is pretty large, at about 150 to 200 MB. As far as I can tell, it will not use more than 200 MB -- during testing, I watched RAM usage on the "maximum accuracy" configuration, because I was curious to see if the switch from 1 GB on my old system to 2 GB on my new system would help. It did not. (the total size of my database/voice files is currently just over 300 MB.)
I also noticed on my old system that Dragon requires a fair amount of hard disk access. I was copying several gigabytes of data from one computer to another computer (over gigabit ethernet) and Dragon's responsiveness dropped way off. It was still accurate, but rather than speaking and seeing the text a second or so later, there was a four or five second pause for most sentences.
4 -- I included a link to a zip file in the article for anyone interested in looking at specific errors. The text files were compared using WinDiff, and I manually counted errors. (I was somewhat lenient, in that I allowed "speech-recognition" to match "speech recognition" -- stuff like that.)
5 -- Dragon has definitely been "trained" on the document. Microsoft seems to do its own thing in terms of training, so all I could do is make sure that all of the words used were known by the speech engine. When you make an error using Microsoft's tool, as far as I know you have to correct with the keyboard. You can't just tell it to select the misinterpreted words and provide the correct interpretation. Perhaps it's possible to switch to command mode, tell the application to select something, then switch to dictation mode and give the correct spelling... at that point, you're far better off using the mouse and keyboard, and if you can't use those then you're much better off using Dragon's interface.
6 -- Ithet's entirely possible, and laryngitis certainly doesn't help speech recognition at all. You definitely don't want to get in the habit of speaking really loudly, so it's best to train the software in a somewhat subdued voice (in my opinion). I would say the most important thing is to do everything in moderation; sitting at a computer dictating for 12 hours a day is going to be just as harmful in the long run as sitting at a computer typing 12 hours a day.
bobsmith1492 - Saturday, April 22, 2006 - link
"Besides, good fiction is a good skill to have when... ":P Kind of like Isaac Asimov?
JarredWalton - Saturday, April 22, 2006 - link
See what I get for not proofing carefully? LOL - that's the type of error I get most of the time. "A" for "the" is another common one.Gioron - Friday, April 21, 2006 - link
My brother swears by DNS, but using it myself and watching him use it I just can't stand going that slow. I've gotten to the point where I can type much faster than the speach recognition can handle it, and stopping to correct it just slows things down to a painful level. Of course, I'd probably have to learn to live with it if my wrists started bothering me, but until then...And then there's this bash.org quote:
http://www.bash.org/?34776">http://www.bash.org/?34776
<www666> this is so cool I'm typing with Dragon NaturallySpeaking in mIrc
<www666> no more typing
<LameLLama> www: try "thlash exit"
*** www666 has quit IRC (Leaving)
*** www666 ([email protected]int.ca) has joined #visualbasic
<www666> Hugh Masters
<www666> you basterdes
hans007 - Friday, April 21, 2006 - link
i used speech recognition with office xp when it came out. that was awful.my acura navigation has speech recognition which is also not well, that useful, its still easier to use buttons.
i honestly think it will never be better than just buttons.